


moonlight

by nuest95s



Category: NU'EST, Produce 101 (TV), Wanna One (Band)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood, Derogatory Language, Friends to Lovers, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, Slurs, a little bit of fighting but just a TINY BIT!!, minhyun's a bartender, neither of them have real families, ong's a heartbreaker, or communication skills
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2019-03-12 23:26:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13557819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nuest95s/pseuds/nuest95s
Summary: This was how it happened—a boy who had only ever hurt and a boy who had only ever been hurt, and the closing space between them.





	moonlight

**Author's Note:**

> loosely based on wanna one's song wanna. basically ong's a film student with a knack for breaking hearts and minhyun's a lit major who works as a bartender in his free time and like fate tends to bring them together in the worst way? there's a lot of stylistic things i was trying out w this fic so if u notice anything... That's On Purpose :D  
> there's also use of a sexual slur at one point so if u want to skip over that stop at "What did he say?" and start at "Seongwoo swallowed hard."  
> i'm really nervous about posting this tbh but i hope u all like it! here's a playlist that i recommend reading it with bc i wrote it over the span of a month so these are like. Peak Moonlight Jams. anyway have fun i hope it's better than i think it is ⇢ ꒰ https://open.spotify.com/user/varsh-bear/playlist/2S4Utb29GE8uXnVWmlq4T9?si=I-uYjVOYRX-ah6tnPLJn6Q ꒱

         The first time Ong Seongwoo saw Hwang Minhyun, he was drunk.

         The university’s Christmas festival lasted four days, from the twenty-second to the twenty-fifth. Needless to say, it was deserted by the second day, more of a formality than a festival.

         So why was _he_ here?

         Seongwoo was camping out behind his booth, one of the last still standing. It was little more than a plastic stand, a piece of mistletoe taped to a rod, and the empty beer cans he’d been hiding behind the curtain.

         This was how it happened—a lone figure walking down the sidewalk, a deep blue overcoat tugged tight around his lanky form; snow falling heavy and fast, carpeting the ground so thickly it was suffocating; Seongwoo’s heart twinging with something unrecognizable and indomitable.

         This was how it happened—a handful of circumstances scattered in the cold air between them.  

         “HEY!”

         The figure stopped, and the outline of his face was sharp in the moonlight.

         “YEAH, YOU! CUTE BLUE GUY!”

         The figure hesitated before turning around to meet Seongwoo’s gaze. He cocked his head, expression unclear under the shadow of his hair, and walked over. He was surprisingly young, around his age if anything. He said, “I’m not blue.”

         Seongwoo squinted at him. “But you are cute.”

         His cheeks pinked, then, and he looked away, tracing the plastic poles of his stand. Seongwoo pulled his last can of beer out of his bag and handed it to him but he shook his head and he opened it himself. He took a long swig, and then said, “Why are you here?”

         He tilted his head, in a surprisingly innocent gesture. “You called me over.”

         "Yeah,” he slurred. “But why are you _here?”_

         The boy didn’t meet his eyes and fingered the mistletoe gingerly. “I don’t go home a lot.”

         “Neither do I,” he replied, finishing the can. “Don’t have anywhere to go, though.”

         The boy glanced down at him, and there was something unreadable in his eyes. “So it’s just us, then.”

         “Just us,” Seongwoo echoed, and brought a hand up to the boy’s face. He stiffened for a fraction of a second, but only watched as he brushed his cheek lightly. “You had a snowflake there.”

         A moment of silence, and then, “I’ll tell you what, Mr. Mystery Man.”

         The other cocked his head. “What?”

         “A Christmas present,” Seongwoo said, and then tapped the mistletoe lightly. “I don’t know if you noticed, but business isn’t booming right now.”

         The boy raised his eyebrows. “You could say that.”

         Seongwoo grinned and put his can down before pulling himself to his feet. What remained of his rational thinking was listing all the reasons why this was a stupid idea, but snowflakes were settling on the other boy’s hair and he couldn’t help but think—he was beautiful.

         He leaned forward, then, cupping his cheeks carefully and pressing his lips to his for only a fraction of a second. They tasted, he realized dazedly, like strawberries and vanilla. He pulled back, only slightly, and whispered, “Merry Christmas.”  
  
...

         The second time Ong Seongwoo saw Hwang Minhyun, his life was going to shreds.

         New Year’s Eve had been eventful. Seongwoo’s girlfriend had dramatically dumped him in a shopping mall after listing his many, _many_ faults and saying she wanted a fresh start. All things aside, he didn’t exactly blame her. He wasn’t known for being the best boyfriend, only the hottest.

         He’d fallen asleep in the shower afterwards, only to be woken up by the showerhead detaching and hitting him in the head on the way down. Jisung had wanted to go to the hospital at least, but everyone else, including Seongwoo, was much more interested in getting drunk.

         The bar they usually went to had closed down in the past month, so they were trying out a new place, an underground place sandwiched between a florist and a department store. A neon sign poked out from the wall, flashing a bright white crescent moon and a cursive ‘moonlight’.

         “Artsy,” Seongwoo said approvingly.

         “It’s a pretty new place,” Daniel put in. “Minki said it opened up in September.”

         “And you trusted _Minki_ to recommend us a bar?” Sungwoon asked.

         Daniel opened his mouth to defend him, but Jisung was already walking down the stairs. Seongwoo glanced over his shoulder before following him, the beginnings of a cocky smile already gracing his lips when he thought of the night in front of him.

         It was nearing eleven thirty when they showed up, and the bar was already filled. Seongwoo couldn’t tell if it was from the popularity or from its proximity to campus on New Year’s. It was a cute place, if a bit cramped. A couple steps and a platform in the corner served as a stage for live music, and a couple small tables were scattered across the varnished wood floor. The ceilings were high, and little star lights dangled from the rafters, twinkling in the dimness of the early night.

         The bar was against the opposite wall, one door leading into a backroom, and the other into what was marked as a supply closet. Wooden stools lined it, and there was little space left at this point, only a single stool and a couple feet of space against the wall.

         The group threaded their way through the crowd and leaned against the remaining stool. The bartender had their back to them, handing out a couple drinks he’d just made. Daniel nudged Seongwoo, “Isn’t he cute?”

         Seongwoo scowled but didn’t refute the claim. It was his belief that a black button down, jeans, and an apron should never fit as well as they did on this guy, and it was possibly the most frustrating realization of the day. His ass was amazing.

         Then he turned, shifted slightly, and the silver lights of the stars from above shone on the outline of his side profile. Seongwoo’s stomach bottomed out.

         Why was _he_ here?

         A thousand thoughts raced through Seongwoo’s mind. His luck had to be the worst in the universe—he’d never thought of it as particularly great, but this was just fucking terrible. What the hell was he supposed to do? Fake diarrhea? Jisung could tell in half a second if he was faking. He could say his mother was in cardiac arrest. _What mother?_ He’d suddenly developed liver cancer and could never drink alcohol ever again. That was… possible. In a pinch. His best chance at this point rode on his cancerous liver cells. Great. This was going great.  

         He opened his mouth, lips pinching apologetically, ready to explain the intense bullshit story of how he’d developed liver cancer, when the bartender turned around to serve them.

         Seongwoo realized a couple things, then.

         One, he should’ve never come here. Two, he was happy he had. Three, he was never trusting his drunk vision ever again.

         He was beautiful. At least that, he hadn’t imagined. His mouth curved in a smile when he saw Seongwoo, and his cheeks pinked involuntarily. He wiped his hands on his apron and walked over to them. There was some kind of mischievous amusement flickering in his eyes, and it made him look more youthful than he had that night.

         “You,” he said, pointing at Seongwoo, and Jisung, Sungwoon, and Daniel all blinked at him. He could feel his own face heating slightly, but he didn’t look away.

         “Me?” Seongwoo said, feigning confusion. He’d been drunk, he could at least put off the embarrassment of this entire ordeal for a bit longer.

         “Drunk mistletoe boy,” the bartender said, voice raised slightly over the din of the bar. Seongwoo couldn’t help but think of how pretty his voice was.

 _“Mistletoe?”_ Sungwoon screeched into Seongwoo’s ear. But he wasn’t listening.

         “Oh,” he said, with forced surprise. His ears were beginning to redden, and he hoped his hair was covering it. “Blue guy.”

         The bartender pouted. “I’m not cute anymore?”

         “No,” he said too quickly. “You are.”

         He smiled then, but there was a challenge in it, something latent and wondrous, and Seongwoo was in awe.

         “You called him _cute?”_ Daniel whispered in an exceptionally loud voice. The boy glanced at him, before leaning forward, hands on the bar.

         “So what are you all having?”

         They ordered, and he went off to make the drinks, giving Seongwoo a much needed breath of fresh air. It lasted maybe half a second.

 _“Ong Seongwoo,”_ Jisung said, in his authoritative ‘you have sixty seconds to explain before I kick your ass’ voice. “What the _fuck?”_

         Seongwoo tried to explain the situation as best as he could in the minute he had. When he finished, his friends were staring at him with varying levels of disappointment, awe, and shame.

         “Right,” Sungwoon said. “Because you just _drunkenly called_ the hottest guy on campus over to kiss you on Christmas. Like I’d believe that.”

         Seongwoo just offered him a small smile, and Sungwoon’s face fell. “You—you really—“

         “I said I’m _sorry,”_ he said quickly. “Plus, I thought _I_ was the hottest guy on campus.”

         Sungwoon raised his eyebrows. “Whatever you say, drunk mistletoe boy.”

         “Stop calling me that, hyung!”

         Daniel nudged him hard, and Seongwoo nearly fell off the stool. “He’s coming, he’s _coming_. Act cool, hyung. At least try.”

         Seongwoo smirked. “Of course I can act cool. I’m Ong Seongw—“

         The boy slid their drinks across the bar, and Seongwoo caught his, barely. He cocked his head. “Interesting drink choice. Not a lot of people drink fireball whisky around here.”

         “Well, I impress to aim,” he replied smoothly. He could hear the faint sound of Jisung face palming behind him.

         The bartender simply laughed. “You’re cute.”

         Sungwoon stepped on Seongwoo’s foot in excitement and he managed a pained smile. “T-thanks.”

         Jisung pulled out his wallet, but he waved it off. “It’s on the house.”

         “He said it’s on the house,” Daniel whispered into Seongwoo’s ear loudly.

         “I heard him the first time.”

         He grinned at the rest of the group and made a little faux salute. “Let me know if you guys need anything else.”

         Even after he turned to leave, Seongwoo couldn’t help but watch the place where he’d stood. Something unrecognizable was expanding in his chest, and it was a bit frightening—the stars above them, the faint thrum of music barely audible over the crowd, the burn of cinnamon and whisky down his throat.

         And then Jisung poked his shoulder, and it was gone.

         He sighed. “What am I going to do with you?”  
  
...

         The night went by quickly enough. Daniel had disappeared a long time ago, and Sungwoon and Jisung had followed him a couple minutes later. Seongwoo didn’t really mind—he was here to wash away the woes of the day and the year with alcohol, and he was doing pretty damn well.

         "You should slow down,” the bartender suggested after handing him his next drink. He’d lost track of how many he’d had at this point.

         “Rich coming from a bartender,” Seongwoo replied, and his voice slurred slightly. “Is business that good?”

         “Not really,” he said lightly. “But I don’t think you’ll be leaving anytime soon.”

         “Cocky of you.”

         “Am I wrong?”

         Seongwoo watched him carefully, but his back was to him, wiping down the back counter. “What’s your name?”

         “Mm?” he said, turning around slightly. His chest twinged with déjà vu at the shadow of his face. “Pardon me?”

         “Your name,” he repeated, and his voice rasped slightly.

         He smiled. “I’m Hwang Minhyun. You?”

         “Me?” Seongwoo asked quietly. “I’m—“

         “No, I know who you are,” the bartender—Minhyun—said, laughing. “I doubt there’s a person on the campus who doesn’t know Ong Seongwoo’s name.”

         “Should I be flattered?” Seongwoo said thoughtfully, stirring his empty glass.

         “Maybe,” Minhyun said. “Infamy is as powerful as anything.”

         He opened his mouth to reply, but a shout had begun to build from the front of the bar. A television mounted on the wall was displaying the countdown—they had maybe a minute left.

         “What’s the snake screen playing?” Seongwoo mumbled, and Minhyun stifled a choking noise.

         “Did you just,” he started, putting his champagne flute down and wiping his mouth delicately, “Did you just call that a snake screen?”

         “Isn’t that what it’s called?” he asked, naiveté dripping into his voice.

         Minhyun stared at him for a few seconds, before bursting out laughing. It was a beautiful sound, high and clear, somewhat like tinkling bells. Or maybe he was just drunk.

         “I’ll tell you what,” he said after a few seconds, after finishing his champagne. The countdown was a chorus of screaming drunken voices at this point, and Seongwoo could barely hear him.

         “Ten! Nine! Eight!”

         “What?” he asked, turning to face him. His gaze was unreadable, something warm and yet sad in his dark eyes, and his breath caught in his throat.

         “Seven! Six! Five!”

         “New Year’s present,” he said simply.

         “Four! Five! Three!”

         Minhyun leaned forward, and Seongwoo’s heart stopped for a fraction of a second.

         “Two! One!”

         He tasted like strawberries and vanilla and just a hint of champagne, he noticed. It was the only thought he could really organize at this point. Minhyun pulled back and the corner of his mouth twitched up in a smile.

         “Now we’re even. Happy New Year, Seongwoo.”  
  
...

         The third time Ong Seongwoo saw Hwang Minhyun, he was stressed.

         Seongwoo liked to think of himself as a relatively laidback person, but, as Jisung once put it, he was as excitable as a toddler on crack. Which was a frightening thought in itself.

         After they’d all calmed down from New Year’s, Sungwoon had sat them in the living room of their cramped two bedroom apartment and pulled out a whiteboard. Seongwoo hadn’t been sure where he’d gotten it, but from the expression on his face, he hadn’t been willing to ask.

         He’d scrawled a messy ‘Operation: Moonlight’ on the top of it in hot pink marker. Seongwoo had raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

         Sungwoon had ignored him, and wrote Hwang Minhyun in block letters. “Do we all know who he is?”

         “Not really.”

         “We know _you_ don’t know, fucking dumbass.” But Jisung and Daniel had both nodded, and Seongwoo had sniffed. Sungwoon had turned back to the board and listed items under his names as the other two called them out; he was a lit major, in Seongwoo’s year, notoriously good looking, notoriously unaware of that fact.

         Then Sungwoon had written another name on the board: Kim Jonghyun. Under it, he’d written: God. And then, after a small pause: Hwang Minhyun’s best friend.

         “So?” Seongwoo had said uneasily. “They’re friends. Bros. Dudes being pals.”

         “Maybe so, my young friend. Maybe so. That doesn’t explain why every time I see them he has heart eyes, but maybe so.”

         At that point, all three of his roommates had taken a moment of silence to stare at Seongwoo sadly. It had felt like an intervention.

         “At any rate!” Sungwoon had tapped at the board with his hot pink pen. “Minhyun-ssi is planning to take a music composition class next semester. I took it last year, in fact—there’re always open spots.”

         “I’m not sure what you’re insinuating,” Seongwoo had mumbled. “I have no interest in music composition.”

         “Maybe so,” he’d repeated, then slid the whiteboard behind their TV stand. “Operation debrief completed for today. Let’s meet again after developments arise.”

         Seongwoo had near forgotten that day—it was a little less than a month ago. He’d gone to Moonlight every day since, out of some fraction of a misguided hope. Every night, Minki poured him a drink instead. It wasn’t all bad—but it wasn’t what he wanted.

         He was part of an acting club off campus, and auditions for the next play were in two days. Seongwoo knew he was talented, he knew it like the back of his hand, but that didn’t stop him from being utterly petrified of fucking up last minute. So he’d taken to spending late nights at the bar practicing his lines on a bored looking Minki and eventually on the taps behind him.

         All of this was probably why the faint sound of singing as he descended the stairs into Moonlight made him nearly pass out. He tripped over his last step, barely managing to catch himself against the brick wall. The door was held open a bit with a doorstop, so the muffled thump was fairly inaudible from inside. Seongwoo waited a few seconds for his heart to slow before leaning forward slightly.

         The voice was pitched too high to be recognizable but it tugged at Seongwoo familiarly. It was a popular ballad from last year, one of the soloists that he couldn’t remember the name of.

         He put a hand on the door to steady himself, but tripped over the doorstop and fell into the bar. The singing stopped abruptly, but he felt unready to get up and face the reality of his idiocy.

         “Seongwoo?”

         He straightened himself up sheepishly. “That’s me.”

         Minhyun was mopping the floor, but he leaned his mop against the edge of the bar and regarded him thoughtfully. A smile tugged at his mouth. “Are you okay?”

         “Yeah,” he coughed, and looked up, artfully avoiding his gaze. “You haven’t been here for a while.”

         He shrugged. “Family issues. You a regular here now?”

         “Maybe so.” Since when was he copying shit from _Sungwoon hyung?_

         “Minki told me in the break room that he was getting tired of seeing your mopey ass around.”

 _That damn bastard._ “I’m not mopey. I’m sleep deprived.”

         Minhyun clucked. “Poor you. What are you having?”

         “My usual,” he said, and then realized that Minhyun had only made a drink for him once. “What I had on New Year’s is my uh. Usual.”

         He looked up, the corners of his mouth lifting, and Seongwoo smiled in spite of it all.

         “So you sing?”

         “A bit, I guess,” he said, opening the bottle of whisky. “Sometimes I cover songs, but it’s not something very lucrative in the long run.”

         “You’re a lit major.”

         “Low blow, Seongwoo-ssi. I’m not really interested in the music industry, though. What about you?”

         “What _about_ me?” he asked uneasily.

         Minhyun laughed and handed him his drink. “Why do you look like you’re about to pass out?”

 _You_. “I have auditions for a play in two days.”

         “Right, you act,” he replied. “What’s the play?”

         “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Seongwoo replied, after taking a long gulp of his drink. “Love’s fucked up.”

         “That might be the first logical thing you’ve ever said to me while drunk,” Minhyun said, leaning back against the counter.

         “That has to be a lie. And I’m not drunk yet.”

         “Snake TV.”

         “Shut up.”

         He laughed, and Seongwoo frowned before downing the rest of his glass. He stirred it moodily as Minhyun began to calm down. He glanced up, then.

         “What’s your favorite drink?”

         “Why do you want to know?” he said evasively, pulling over a stool.

         “Why won’t you say?”

         “I don’t drink usually,” he admitted after a few seconds. His eyes were on the snake TV but his mind was somewhere else. Then he smiled, eyes twinkling and looked back at Seongwoo. “Is that weird of me?”

         Of course it was weird. How could a bartender avoid alcohol? Seongwoo said, “Not really.”

         His eyes crinkled. “You’re lying.”

         “Maybe so,” Seongwoo said, and his voice was little more than an exhale when he looked back up at him. “Maybe so.”

         Minhyun smiled. There was a beat of silence, then, and he finished cleaning up the counter before refilling his glass. When he spoke, his back was to him. “You can practice on me, if you want. Who are you trying out for?”

         Seongwoo blinked. “Lysander.”

         He smirked. “That’s a fun role. Who do I need to be?”

         “You don’t need to—“

         “Don’t worry about it,” he replied. “You worry too much. Get some sleep tonight, after this is over with.”

         “It’s eleven fifty.”

         “So?” Minhyun slipped onto the stool and leaned forward, chin in his hands. “Time is of the essence, Seongwoo-ssi.”

         He looked away, but a smile flickered on his lips.

         That night, Seongwoo went home with his lines memorized.

         When he walked into the apartment, he had his eyes fixed on the communal desktop computer they had in case of emergencies (since all of them almost always had their laptop in some state of disrepair). Sungwoon was typing up his resume right then, and he raised his eyebrows at Seongwoo’s expression.

         “Did you see your crush?” Seongwoo ignored him, putting down his stuff in the couch before moving to push him off the stool. Sungwoon looked up at him with a scandalized expression. “Excuse me? I’m your hyung, can’t you wait ten fucking minutes, you brat?”

         Seongwoo scowled but took a seat. “Ten minutes.”

         Sungwoon sniffed. “What do you need the computer so bad for anyway?”

         He laid his head back against the wall. “I’m signing up for music composition.”  
  
...

         Seongwoo got the role, as expected. When he’d told Minhyun, though, he’d simply smiled and poured his drink, before saying, “I knew you would.”

         He was used to validation—he would easily admit how much he longed for it. But this kind was different; and he liked it.

         The first day of classes was the next week. The music composition class he was taking with Minhyun was at 8 A.M., which was frankly fucking preposterous. Sungwoon had had to drag him out of bed by his ankles and shove him into the running shower before Seongwoo had opened his eyes. Even when he opened the door to the music building, coffee thermos in hand, he wasn’t really awake yet.

         Seongwoo checked his phone—he was five minutes late. Whatever. He could pull off being fashionably late.

         Class had just started—the professor had begun her introduction, trailing off awkwardly when Seongwoo walked in. He could feel gazes on him, but it was nothing he wasn’t used to. Absentmindedly, he wondered if this was what Minhyun had meant by infamy. There were better things to be well known for.  
Minhyun was already there, obviously. Seongwoo suspected he’d come to class half an hour early ready to go. There was a single textbook in the seat beside him, and Seongwoo frowned. “Who’s that for?”

         “Jealous?” he teased. “No, it’s for you. I saw you on the roster and I figured I better snap you up before all the other girls did.”

         Seongwoo slid into the seat. “How flattering. I don’t think the girls are here for me, though.”

         He cocked his head. “Who else would they be here for?”

         Sungwoon’s voice echoed in his head— _notoriously attractive, notoriously unaware of that fact._ “Amazing.”

         “What?”

         “Anyway,” Seongwoo said, pulling out his laptop. “What did I miss?”

...

 

         Seongwoo didn’t know music. He knew the thrill of performing in front of a bulging theater, the breathlessness of a soliloquy finished perfectly. He could sing—if he needed to. But he didn’t know _music._ And apparently, it was painfully obvious.

         “Do you need help?” Seongwoo glanced over his shoulder as he put away his stuff.

         “Why would you think that?”

         Minhyun snorted. “You looked like a lost puppy for half the class, and the other half you were asleep.”

         He hung his head. “I shouldn’t have signed up for this.”

         “Why did you?” he held out a hand to help him up. “You never really seemed interested in music, at least from what I knew of you.”

         “Wanted to broaden my horizons,” Seongwoo lied through his teeth.

         Minhyun didn’t reply, but tsked softly. “Are you free?”

         “What?” he asked, flustered.

         A lopsided smile flickered on his face. “For lunch. Are you free? I know a good sushi place near here.”

         “I’m broke,” Seongwoo blurted. Operation Moonlight was moving way too quickly for his taste.

         “I’ll pay,” Minhyun offered. “Perks of being an actually productive member of society.”

         “Excuse me?”

         He only laughed at that, an almost chaotic bubbling that drew Seongwoo forward. “You coming or not?”

         Seongwoo glanced down at his phone momentarily before turning it off n putting it in his pocket. “Yeah. I’m coming.”

         Unfortunately, it was fucking freezing outside. In one of his frequent lapses of rational thought, Seongwoo had only dressed in a t-shirt and jeans, and now he was worried he might die from hypothermia. Minhyun regarded him amusedly, dressed in a sweater and an overcoat.

         “Do you need a—“

         “I’m _f-fine,_ ” he managed. “Peachy. Never been better.”

         “Of course you are,” Minhyun replied lightly. He opened his mouth as if to say something further, but a faint sound of shouting drew his attention.

         Seongwoo glanced over to see what he was looking at, and immediately wished he hadn’t. There, in the middle of the fucking quad, was Daniel and Sungwoon, toting a board that read ‘Go, Ong Seongwoo!’ in bright blue glitter glue.

         He growled, “I’m gonna kill them.”

         Minhyun stifled his laugh with his coat sleeve. “Is today important for any reason?”

         Seongwoo recalled the hot pink ‘Operation Moonlight’ board in their living room. “Not really.”

         His eyes twinkled. “I see. Anyway, we should get going. It’s pretty crowded after one thirty.”

         Seongwoo didn’t need to turn around to know his friends were still cheering him on.

         The sushi was unexpectedly good, but he found himself unable to focus on it. This was a dream—all of this. It had to be. Seongwoo wasn’t the sort of guy who did this, and he wasn’t exactly good at it. He wasn’t even sure what _it_ was, only that he was utterly failing at it.

         And that he didn’t want it to stop.

         “Give me your phone,” Minhyun said suddenly, as they were getting up to leave.

         Seongwoo only blinked at him, reluctantly fishing out his phone. “Why?”

         He didn’t reply, but tapped a couple buttons before handing it back to him. “I’ll see you around, drunk mistletoe boy.”

         “Won’t you ever stop calling me that?” he grumbled.

         “Nope!”

         Ten minutes later, he got a message.  
  
**cute blue boy** ** _[1:37 PM] :_** Don’t you dare change my contact name  
  
**cute blue boy** ** _[1:37 PM] :_** We should do that again :)  
  
**drunk mistletoe boy** ** _[1:44 PM]:_** yeah  
  
**drunk mistletoe boy** ** _[1:44 PM]:_** we shld  
  
...  
  
It did happen again—the sushi, that was. It happened again, and again, and again. It was probably the closest thing Seongwoo had to routine in his life, apart from rehearsals and karaoke night with his roommates. That and Moonlight.

         Seongwoo went every night, from eleven to one—Minhyun’s shift. Sometimes they talked, sometimes they didn’t, depending on how busy it was. It was remarkably easy to make small talk with him when tipsy, he noted. It was a discomfiting routine, but it sent a bit of childish excitement down Seongwoo’s spine. He wasn’t exactly used to holding onto things.

         Play rehearsals were well underway, and the steady beat of those was calming as well. There were a couple of newbies this year, but they seemed pretty solid.

         “Do you know who Park Jihoon is?” Seongwoo asked.

         Minhyun raised his eyebrows. “Don’t tell me you don’t.”

         Seongwoo’s expression was solemn. “Maybe so.”

         “Do you not pay attention to campus events?” Minhyun asked incredulously. “Park Jihoon, child actor, got in here on an acting scholarship, could charm an eighty year old lady into handing him her car keys in a cornfield?”

         “I have a social life,” he snapped. “I just have a shit memory. These things go hand in hand.”

         “Of course they do,” Minhyun replied wisely. “Anyway, what about him?”

         Seongwoo stirred his whisky absentmindedly. “He’s playing Puck in the play. He was close to getting Demetrius too—Sungjae just barely kept his spot. Baby cheeks and a smile are powerful, I guess.”

         “Not like you’d know,” Minhyun said, and he glared at him from slit eyes.

         “You’re such an asshole,” he whined. “When did you become such an asshole?”

         “Hmm,” he considered, cocking his head. “From Christmas on?”

 _“Anyway,”_ Seongwoo huffed. “My favorite flowers are carnations.”

         “And why are you telling me that?” he teased.

         “Because I expect to see you front row on opening night with a whole tub of carnation blossoms cheering me on,” Seongwoo replied, just short of an order.

         “I’m a college student,” Minhyun pointed out. “Where would I find the time or the money?”

         “I’m sure you can cut out some time out of your busy, _busy_ schedule for me,” he grinded out.

         “I’ll think about it,” Minhyun said amusedly. “Do you like tuna rolls?”

 

...  
  
         The first time Seongwoo met Jonghyun, it was three weeks into their class. It hadn’t taken him long to realize that he was absolutely shit at music composition, while Minhyun was amazing at it. But the latter was patient, almost teasingly so.

         “You can’t read music?” he guessed after another failed class. At Seongwoo’s silence, he blinked. “Really?”

         “Stop bullying me,” he whined. “I don’t need to read music to sing.”

         Minhyun frowned, but his eyes were smiling. “Well, this isn’t singing class. Are you good at cooking?”

         “Mm?” Seongwoo mumbled, the tail end of a granola bar hanging out of his mouth.

         “I’m getting tired of sushi,” he replied. “You don’t have rehearsals today, right? Come over for once.”

         Seongwoo bit off the granola bar and carefully placed it inside his bag before nodding. “That sounds good.”

         The walk over was refreshing, if a bit chilly. It was early February at this point, and lovesick couples had begun to frequent the university roads. Seongwoo couldn’t help but think about how he used to be like that. But he’d never really dated like that, all flower bouquets and chocolate boxes. That was probably why it’d never lasted.

         “Have you met Jonghyun before?” Minhyun asked thoughtfully.

         “No,” Seongwoo replied absentmindedly, and he laughed.

         “I don’t know what I was expecting really. Pretty much everyone knows him, but I should’ve known you wouldn’t have.”

         “What’s that supposed to mean?” Seongwoo asked, glancing over sharply.

         “You know. You’re Ong Seongwoo. You’re stuck in your own world, with your own dreams and your own group. Of course you transcend the rest of us mortals. At least that’s what everyone says,” he finished lightly. There was nothing accusatory about his words; he delivered them with the detachment of a narrator. His eyes were watching the sky—darkening, sunlight streaming through cracks in the clouds. Then he looked back at him. “I don’t believe them.”

         “You…” Seongwoo started, swallowing hard before continuing. “You should. They’re right.”

         "You’re a good actor,” he replied instead. “As expected of our campus theater ace.” A couple beats of silence, and then, “I like pasta.”

         Seongwoo had only made pasta from scratch once, in some disastrous attempt to impress his newest girlfriend. It hadn’t gone too badly, until she found a piece of plastic in her noodle. But he could try—something about Minhyun made him want to try.

         His apartment was on the outskirts of campus, with a stunning view of the long term parking lots. It was quiet as they went up, Seongwoo’s breath puffing even in the elevator.

         “Anyway,” Minhyun whispered. “Jonghyun’s at work, so he’ll come by later.”

         While Seongwoo attempted to make a passing version of fettuccine, Minhyun was writing up what looked like a mess of notes. He looked up once, and shooed him away. _“You_ focus on lunch.”

         He sniffed. “It’s almost done anyway. What’re you doing?”

         Minhyun didn’t answer at first, and finally put his head in his hands. “This is why I didn’t go into teaching.”

         “Like you would’ve been a teacher anyway,” Seongwoo snorted, before mimicking, “’It’s not a very lucrative job, Seongwoo-ssi.’”

         Minhyun hit his shoulder with the newspaper on the table. “Brat.”

         “Is that what you call the kind young man who made you lunch?” he reprimanded, placing the steaming platter on the round table in the nook.

         “That looks good,” he said fluidly, and Seongwoo let it go. The meal was quick, all Minhyun continuing to attempt a lesson plan as he scrolled through his phone. It was only an hour later, Seongwoo flopped face down against the couch when Minhyun approached him again.

         He whacked his backside with a rolled up newspaper. “Wake up.”

         “I’m not sleeping,” he mumbled against the upholstery, before squirming himself to an upright position, barely catching the notebook Minhyun tossed him.

         His cheeks were slightly pink, only the deep redness in his ears a sign of his discomposure. “Read through that, and ask me if you need help.”

         Seongwoo raised his eyebrows and glanced down. The handwriting was neat enough, but he didn’t know half the words in the first sentence. “I need help.”

         “Really?”

         “You know, not everyone is a natural born genius,” he muttered.

         “Ong Seongwoo admitting he’s not good at something? I should get this on tape.” He laughed at his scandalized expression before plucking the notebook out of his hands and taking a seat on the couch beside him.

         There was little proximity between them now, only a couple inches of worn leather and their jeans against each other. This was the hardest part, Seongwoo thought dazedly as Minhyun explained the notes. His voice ran into a gentle thrum against his ears—he wasn’t processing anything but the drip of the tap in the kitchen. It wasn’t that he was bad at explaining, not at all. But he’d learned nothing nonetheless.

         About an hour in, Minhyun squinted at him. “You need a break? You’re a bit flushed.”

         “I-I’m fine,” Seongwoo stammered. “It’s just kinda hot.”

         He cocked his head. “The heater isn’t on, though. Do you want me to turn on the aircon?”

         I’m really fine,” he protested weakly.

         Minhyun smiled, then, and his ears burned. “If you say so.”

         He turned back to the notebook, and pointed out a section of a piece he’d diagrammed out in small cursive script. Seongwoo let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. He didn’t do this—he didn’t _like_ people, and he sure as hell didn’t befriend the people he liked. This—whatever it was—was already longer than most friendships—relationships—that he’d had. It was dangerous, he thought absently, something inherently foolish. Yet he couldn’t find it in him to regret it.

         The rest of the afternoon went by like that, and he silently prayed that somehow he was absorbing all of this information magically. At about six, Minhyun clapped the notebook closed and Seongwoo jumped. “That’s it for today!”

         “We’re done?”

         Minhyun laughed, and it wasn’t an unpleasant sound. “Considering your attention span, probably not forever. But for today.”

         Seongwoo blinked and picked up his stuff. “I guess I’m going, then? Thanks again for—“

         “Why are you leaving?” he asked, and there was something simple about the question. _Why was he leaving?_ Because they were done. Why was he here in the first place? “Don’t you need a ride back?”

 _Oh._ “I can walk.”

         He snorted. “That’s a bit far to walk. I have a gig at Moonlight tonight. I’ll drop you off on my way.”

         “A gig?” Seongwoo zipped his bag up, not looking up as he spoke.

         “Mm,” he replied, pulling off his hoodie. “Minki told the manager I sing _and_ gave himaudio apparently. Either everyone else is tired of me humming during work, or they agree with him, ‘cause they gave me a slot before my shift tonight.”

         There was a slight pause, then, Minhyun changing in the corner and Seongwoo trying, and failing miserably, to make conversation despite it.

         “What are you planning to sing?” he asked finally, more out of reflex than conscious curiosity. He had no desire to imagine Minhyun covering a song in the dim lights of Moonlight, eyes fluttered closed—

         A light knock came from the door, and Seongwoo breathed in deeply, a failed attempt at calming himself. Minhyun looked up, t-shirt uneven on his shoulders, exposing his neck and collarbones. “That’s probably Jonghyun.”

         There was the scraping of key against lock, and then the door creaked open, A pair of inquisitive dark brown eyes blinked in the darkness as the man, ‘probably Jonghyun’ as Minhyun had referred to him, poked his head in. His eyes fell on Minhyun changing, and skittered across, as if used to the sight, before settling on Seongwoo.

         His gaze was brief, though, and he quickly looked away as he moved himself into the apartment, locking the door behind him. Yet it was still discomfiting. It had a penetrative quality, like he knew everything Seongwoo had ever done and everything he wanted to do.

         “It’s freezing,” he complained quietly, removing his hoodie and moving to leave it on the couch before hanging it up reluctantly at Minhyun’s glare. “Is the heater broken?”

         Minhyun nodded his head at Seongwoo before straightening out his shirt. “Blame Mr. Radiator here.”

         Jonghyun looked down at Seongwoo, eyes taking him in a second time. Then he smiled brightly and gave him his hand. His teeth, he noted dazedly, were very white. “Well, anything for a guest. I’m Kim Jonghyun, if Minhyun hadn’t already told you."

         "I’m Ong Seongwoo,” he managed smoothly, shaking it weakly. “Sorry for turning your apartment into the North Pole.”

         His eyes pinched in a smile. “We have enough blankets around.” He glanced down at Seongwoo’s bag before cocking his head. “Are you two going out?”

         Minhyun grunted an agreement, absentmindedly tidying up the counter. “I have to be at Moonlight, and he needs a ride home. There’s some pizza in the refrigerator and I got some beer for you.”

         Jonghyun grinned. “Love you!”

         “You _owe_ me,” Minhyun retorted, glancing at Seongwoo. “C’mon, before he tells you my embarrassing childhood stories.”

         Seongwoo couldn’t imagine Minhyun doing anything embarrassing, child or not, but he waved goodbye to Jonghyun and followed him nonetheless.

         Minhyun went down before him, and by the time he got to the parking garage, he’d already unlocked his ancient motorcycle and started it up. His helmet was tucked under one arm, the other beckoning Seongwoo to come over. “She’s kinda old, and only Jonghyun’s been on her with me before, but I’m sure she’ll hold.”

         “That sounds promising,” he said drily, shifting uncomfortably near the seat. After a few minutes of it, he blurted, “Are you sure this thing’s safe?”

         He looked back at him, then, eyes steely behind the visor of the helmet but otherwise unreadable in the darkness of the garage. “Do you trust me?”

         “Yes,” he said quickly, too quickly, and bit his lip. He only caught a slice of a smile flickering over his face before Minhyun turned around again.

         “Then get on, Seongwoo.”

         So he did.

         He wasn’t sure what to do with his hands, since putting them where teenage romance movies had told him to put them seemed like an incendiary idea at the moment. He finally placed them on the inside of his thighs, gripping the cracking leather like a life vest. Minhyun was still for a few seconds, and then spoke. “I’m not poisonous.”

         “Never said you were,” he said, calmer than he felt.

         A sound like a laugh and a sigh, and then one slender hand uncurled from the handlebars and reached behind to take Seongwoo’s. The warmth of his own hand disappeared, momentarily replaced by the cold of Minhyun’s fingers against his thigh. His heart stopped—it felt as if everything was silent in that one moment. Minhyun took his hand and placed it on his stomach.

         “Jonghyun says that I’m okay at maneuvering this thing, but I think he’s being nice,” he said, voice barely a whisper. “So you should hold on.”

         So he did.

         His last breath was still caged into his throat, heart split between beats, but he pulled his other hand from his thigh and reached around his shirt, crumpling his fingers in the fabric gently. When Minhyun leaned forward, hands tightening around the handlebars and revving loudly, he could feel the warmth of his stomach through the thin cotton. Seongwoo exhaled, a thousand tangled breaths in one second, and Minhyun started off.

         He wasn’t as bad as he’d made himself out to be. There was something well worn and practiced in his turns, and Seongwoo realized again how little he knew about him.

         They’d passed the Music building when Minhyun first spoke again. He could barely hear him over the wind. “Where d’you live again?”

         Seongwoo bit back a laugh. “You didn’t think to ask me this before we left?”

         He shrugged, but he could hear a smile in his voice. “I have good navigation skills.”

         “You know that Dutch bakery on Main? There’s a bookstore across from it? Anyway, drop me off in front of the bookstore, we have an apartment above it.”

         He didn’t answer, but tilted his head in acknowledgement. After a few minutes, he said something else, but it was inaudible over the wind.

         “What?”

         “I said that you should get some sleep. You look out of it. Don’t come to Moonlight tonight, take a nap for once.”

         Seongwoo didn’t reply at once, words caught in his throat. Minhyun slowed to a stop before he could figure out what to say, though, and pulled his helmet off. His hair was messy, curling over his forehead. Finally, he said, “Okay.”

         Minhyun simply smiled, bright and unassuming. “I’ll see you tomorrow night?”

         And he did.  
  
…  
  
         Seongwoo and Minhyun had a routine—class, drinks, homework, repeat. Minhyun was an undeniable fixture in his life, yet one he still hadn’t quite acclimated himself to.

         He wasn’t sure what they were; something upward of a hot mess, but a lot less overt. Like a trainwreck seconds before it fell off the tracks. Seongwoo was well versed in hot messes, being one himself, but he had neither the knowledge, nor the initiative to untangle this mess of a friendship. Their routine—as messy as it was—was theirs.

         Which is why when Seongwoo walked into the frozen yogurt shop a couple blocks from campus before his cinematic history class and saw none other than Hwang Minhyun, his initial impulse was to turn around and get ice cream instead. _You’re friends,_ he told himself, forcing himself to keep walking to the self serve line. _Friends don’t avoid each other because of unrequited romantic feelings._

         Minhyun didn’t see him—he was further in the line, squeezing sugar free vanilla yogurt into his cup while some guy chatted him up. His fingers tapped nervously on the lever, but his expression was smooth, a forced smile pulling at his lips.

         Seongwoo glanced at his empty cup, then at the ‘double chocolate chip’ label in front of him, then at the ‘nonfat birthday cake’ label conveniently located next to Minhyun. He loved fat, and hated birthday cake. Then he sighed deeply and walked over, filling his cup halfway. The things he did for love.

         The other guy hadn’t seemed to get the hint. Seongwoo didn’t recognize him, but Minhyun’s voice echoed in his head: _You’re stuck in your own world._ He was cute enough—a crooked gummy smile and bright eyes. In another universe, in another month, Seongwoo might’ve asked him for his number. But in this one, he simply pulled the lever back up and stepped beside Minhyun.

         Without missing a beat, he handed Minhyun his yogurt cup. “Babe, could you pay for mine? I forgot my wallet.” Minhyun’s expression was inquisitive, but he nodded, and he grinned at him, steeling his nerves before leaning forward and kissing him on the cheek. “Thanks.”

         One, two, three—they were piling up at this point. When he pulled back, he ignored his wide-eyed stare and turned back to the other guy. He looked more than a little taken aback—Seongwoo had made his point. But he couldn’t stop, for whatever reason. His tongue was loose, and he felt capable. Whether he was capable of something good or something truly stupid, he wasn’t sure.

         “Is this guy bothering you?” he said. God, he sounded like a douche. A douche dating Hwang Minhyun.

         “Actually, I was on my way,” he said uncomfortably, bringing up his hand briefly in a farewell before walking out of the shop. His untouched lemon sorbet was on top of the glass counter, and an employee regarded it sadly, before placing it in the back.

         “Was that really necessary?” Minhyun complained, but when Seongwoo turned to face him, he was smiling.

         “Maybe not,” he conceded. “But he’s gone!”

         “I half thought you were going to ask for his number and leave me behind,” he added, walking past him. “Chocolate sprinkles or rainbow?”

         “Rainbow. And maybe the Old Ong Seongwoo would. But I’m Seongwoo 3.0. Complete with bug fixes and a faster interface.”

         Minhyun laughed. “Did you actually leave your wallet at home?”

         Seongwoo didn’t answer at first, pointing at the chocolate syrup bottle in the corner. “Maybe not.”

         “Am I just a walking ATM to you and Jonghyun?” he whined. “It’s not like I’m fucking loaded, asshole.”

         “You _owe_ me this time,” Seongwoo pointed out, leaning back against the glass as the cashier rang up the total.

         “You owe me _all the time,”_ Minhyun retorted. “Who else’s going to put up with your annoying ass every night?”

         “I’ll have you know, I’m _very_ in demand,” Seongwoo huffed. “Everyone wants a piece of my annoying ass!”

         Minhyun glanced at him then, eyes glittering, and burst out laughing. “Here’s your yogurt.”

         Seongwoo shrugged. “I don’t like that flavor. I just needed an excuse to get at him.”

         “What a waste of money,” he frowned, before handing him his cup. “Here, take mine. Where are you going after this?”

         Seongwoo looked down at the sprinkles, dazed for a few seconds before answering. “I have a class in a couple hours. Cinematic history, it’s close to here.”

         Minhyun cocked his head thoughtfully, then took his hand. “Let’s go.”

         “What?”

         He glanced back at him. “You need a break, and I need someone to eat frozen yogurt with.”

         Seongwoo wasn’t sure how to reply to that, but he found he didn’t have to. Minhyun led him to a fountain curled around the festival square in the middle of campus. It was familiar for some reason, and it took Seongwoo a couple minutes to recognize it as the place he’d set his stand up at Christmas so many weeks ago.

         It was sunny for a February afternoon, all blossoms seconds before bloom and the bitterness of yesterday’s rain. Seongwoo couldn’t focus on the scenery, and stirred his yogurt aimlessly. When he looked over, Minhyun’s gaze was melancholy and unfocused, almost wistful. He looked away, plucking at a fallen leaf, when he finally spoke.

         “Why were you there?”

         “What?” Seongwoo managed, yogurt halfway to his mouth. “Why was I where?”

         Minhyun tilted his head. _“Here._ On Christmas. Everyone else had left, but you’d still set up your booth. Why?”

         Seongwoo considered it. He didn’t really remember exactly why—some combination of loneliness and idiocy, some need to assert his validity as a member of society. It was a feeling that he couldn’t quite explain—a need to prove to himself that he was real, that he mattered. Yet there was something daring about it—sitting alone behind a plastic sign as the snow came down, freezing his balls off while he downed beer after beer. It was the sort of thing Ong Seongwoo did, but he wasn’t sure what that even meant. Eventually, he just shrugged. “I was bored. Why were you there?”

         Minhyun stared at him for a few seconds more, something unreadable flickering in his eyes, before he replied, “Boredom, probably.”

         Seongwoo opened his mouth to say something further, but a fist cut him off, rather violently, crashing into his cheek.

         “How _dare_ you show yourself around here again?”

         He recognized the voice faintly as one of his exes, but couldn’t quite remember how he’d fucked him over. Was it the arrogance? The inability to commit to second dates? The guy who he’d cheated on with his sister?

         “Spineless piece of shit. Sooyoung told me you’d moved away, but you’ve always been a liar at heart, haven’t you?” So it was the last one.

         “Hey,” Seongwoo cut in, laughing nervously. The remnants of that fiery, reckless feeling from before were still littered in his blood, and his heart seemed almost ready to rip out of his chest. Yet something dark and tangled weighed down his gut—the closest thing he had to a conscience. “That’s a bit much.”

         The man—more a boy, features rounded with youth—narrowed his eyes at him. “Why the fuck are you laughing?”

_Why was he laughing?_

         This entire situation felt foreign to him—he was living another person’s life, suffering for another person’s mistakes. That feral boy who tore at others to sate himself was gone and somehow this absence bothered Seongwoo more than his existence.

         The other’s eyes darkened at whatever discord he saw in Seongwoo’s, and he turned to Minhyun instead. Seongwoo tensed instinctively, shifting infinitesimally closer to him. He ignored him, directing his question to Minhyun, who’d put down his frozen yogurt to watch the exchange with something akin to cold scrutiny. “How can you bear to be with him?”

_With him._

         He thought they were dating. Of course he thought they were dating. Ong Seongwoo didn’t have friends—he had fuckbuddies.

         “We’re not—“ Seongwoo started, but Minhyun cut him off.

         “That’s enough, Minseok,” he said softly, yet his voice carried a note of steel that unnerved him. “You should go. Now.”

         The other man’s mouth twisted, but he nodded slowly, looking back at Seongwoo before turning to leave. “You’d better watch yourself, Ong Seongwoo. Next time, your pretty boyfriend won’t be able to hold me back.”

         “He’s not my boyfriend,” Seongwoo said, and his voice sounded weak even to him. But Minseok had already left.

         Minhyun cupped his jaw softly, and his heart stuttered briefly in his chest. All the softness of before had left his gaze, but his touch was gentle. “You should get this cleaned up.”

         “T-there’s a first aid kit at the apartment,” Seongwoo managed. “I-I’ll just go there now, so I can finish before class. See you later!”

         Before he could respond, Seongwoo picked up his bag and left, nearly breaking into a sprint at one point.

         It was only when he reached the apartment when he realized that he’d left his frozen yogurt.  
  
…

 

         It was opening night of the play, and the bright white wad of gauze on Seongwoo’s cheek was making practicing his lines a fucking pain in the ass.

         This wasn’t the first time Seongwoo had performed with his face busted open, but there was something foreign about it, all the other memories muted as if they didn’t truly belong to him.

         But he was over thinking about that—tonight, he wasn’t the old Seongwoo, or the new one. He was Lysander, lost in some heteronormative love square with people he’d known since freshman year.

         He hadn’t spoken to Minhyun about it since the day of, opting to rest at home with painkillers and variety shows. Minhyun had kept him occupied though, sending videos of his day, commentary on his life, and a couple cute animal videos. Unsure about his performance tonight, he’d also not told him about the play.

         Which is why this message was such a surprise.  
  
**cute blue boy** ** _[7:48 PM] :_** Do you like orchids  
  
**cute blue boy [7:48 PM] :** Whatever I hope you like orchids the florist was out of carnations  
  
**drunk mistletoe boy** ** _[7:51 PM] :_** what do you mean  
  
**drunk mistletoe boy** ** _[7:51 PM] :_** DON’T TELL ME YOU’RE COMING TO THE PLAY  
  
**cute blue boy** ** _[7:51 PM] :_** And why not  
  
**drunk mistletoe boy** ** _[7:52 PM] :_** BECAUSE  
  
**drunk mistletoe boy** ** _[7:52 PM] :_** I LOOK LIKE A BALLOON WITH HAIR  
  
**drunk mistletoe boy** ** _[7:52 PM] :_** MINHYUN IM GOING TO TANK PLS DONT COME  
  
**cute blue boy** ** _[7:53 PM] :_** You forget I’m used to you tanking  
  
**cute blue boy** ** _[7:53 PM] :_** And there’s no way I’d pass up an opportunity to make fun of you  
  
**cute blue boy** ** _[7:55 PM] :_** Break a leg!!!!!! Not really tho be careful

         When Jihoon walked into the room, Seongwoo was banging his head on the dresser.

         “Hyung,” he said carefully. “We’re about to go up.”

         “I’m going to die,” Seongwoo muttered. “He’s going to be the death of me.”

         “Hyung—“

         “I’m coming, don’t get your boxer briefs in a twist.”

         When they went out, the audience was unfamiliar. A mix of old and new faces, and yet it all seemed new to Seongwoo. There was something exhilarating about that; the realization that every action he made tonight was unaffected by his life outside of it. That was why he’d joined theater, really—to hold the strings of his own life. But it wasn’t really his own life, and that was why he kept coming back.

         A hint of a squeak behind him—the stage hands finishing set up. That was when Seongwoo saw him, tucked around the back door with a cream and violet bouquet in his hands, his deep blue coat pulled tight. He caught his eyes then, and smiled once, bright and unassuming, and Seongwoo could’ve sworn that he felt the star lights in Moonlight above him.

         And then the show started, and Seongwoo tossed himself to the wind.

 

...  
  
         This was how it happened—Seongwoo sneaking out from backstage after the performance, barefaced in a hoodie and jeans, and Minhyun walking two steps too fast.

         “Fuck—“

         “I’m so—“

         The bouquet went flying, as expected, blossoms littering the linoleum floor. Minhyun frowned at them dejectedly, bending to gather them in his hands. Seongwoo simply looked down for a moment, amusement coloring his cheeks, before crouching to join him.

         “Hey,” he said.

         “It’s a mess,” Minhyun grumbled.

 _“I’m_ a mess,” Seongwoo retorted, taking his hands, the blossoms dampening both of them. “It works.”

         Minhyun scowled at him, but stilled his hands. “So who’s going to clean this up?”

         Seongwoo laughed. “Clean it up all you want, but give me my validation first.”

         “Brat,” he muttered.

         “And yet you still came,” he pointed out.

         “I did,” Minhyun said grudgingly.

         “So?” he asked, rocking back on his heels. Minhyun said nothing at first, folding himself into a sitting position and gathering the scattered orchids. After straightening them into a bouquet, he slipped it back into the crackly tissue paper.

         "I can tell why they say you’re the best actor on campus,” he said simply, handing the flowers to him.

         Something warm and intoxicating bloomed in Seongwoo’s chest—he was no stranger to praise; he chased after it, and it was often diluted with no little amount of insincere flattery. Yet this brief statement brought a momentary sense of… he wasn’t sure what to call it. Satisfaction, but longer lasting. Contentment, or something of that genus.

         It mingled with the butterflies in his stomach, the pre show anxiety and the jitteriness from being around Minhyun and the novelty of it all. It was what Seongwoo imagined youth would feel like, if he’d ever savored it.

         “If I knew a bit of praise was all it took to shut you up, I would never stop kissing your ass,” Minhyun spoke up, brushing off his clothes and pulling himself to his feet. Humor danced in his eyes, and Seongwoo thought somewhat dazedly that it was a good look on him.

         “Now you know,” Seongwoo managed, mirroring his action unsteadily.

         “Now I know,” he agreed, and then fell into a bit of thoughtful silence. It wasn’t quiet—he could feel the tension buzzing in the air, the unsaid words and the gaping chasm and, under it all, the warmth between them in the cold hallway.

         “Seongwoo-yah,” Minhyun said finally, and he jumped involuntarily, a single harsh tremor running through his joints.

         “Yeah?”

         “Now that I’ve had the honor of seeing you perform,” he started, and the lightness with which he spoke clashed with the touch of sadness in his eyes. “Come to Moonlight.”

         “I always—“

         “On Monday. At seven, not eleven. I want you to hear me sing.”

         It was a vulnerable request, as if he was being given a key to something precious and delicate. As if he was being let in. Seongwoo couldn’t help but define everything in terms of that one moment; everything that came before it, and everything that came after it.

         Seongwoo tightened his hands around the flowers, responses running through his head before he finally nodded slowly. He opened his mouth to say something further, but caught a flash of dark red on a white petal and squinted at the bouquet. “Is that blood?”

         Before Minhyun could respond, Seongwoo shoved the bouquet into the crook of his other elbow and took his hands from him. There was a scarlet sheen on his palms, the pads of his fingers dark crimrose. He pulled them closer to examine them, but Minhyun pulled his hands out of his grasp and wrung them lightly.

         “I’m fine,” he said, and there was a note of laughter in it, yet the artificiality of it bothered Seongwoo. “It’s from the thorns.”

         The thorns. The _thorns_. Seongwoo breathed out in relief, dropping his hands by his sides. “You should get that bandaged up, or it’ll get infected.”

         He snorted. “I will. Get some rest, you’ve worked hard.”

         But that night, somewhere near midnight, Seongwoo pulled a dusty vase out of the pantry in the corner of their apartment. Daniel had went to bed earlier, Jisung a bit after. Sungwoon was watching some singing variety show while eating a bowl of tangerines.

         It was then that Seongwoo ran his fingers along the orchid stems pulling them from the tissue paper wrapping. It was smooth, stiff but smooth, and something about that was suffocating. He slipped the flowers in the vase and put it on the windowsill before draping himself across the couch. A couple seconds later, Sungwoon glanced at him.

         “What do you want?” The words were thrown out around a mouthful of tangerine, but Seongwoo could make it out. He handed him the orchid stem.

         “Hyung, do orchids have thorns?”

         Sungwoon raised his eyebrows. “Someone doesn’t know basic botany.”

         “I’m pretty sure this doesn’t classify as basic botany,” he grumbled.

         “Potato, tomato,” he said dismissively. “They don’t. These ones, at least.”

         Seongwoo said nothing more, but brought the fragment of stem to his nose. It smelled faintly of orchids, vanilla, strawberries, and something else.

         It took him a second to identify it, the near pregnant silence of the late night pressing at him—it was the tang of drying blood.  
  
…  
  
         Seongwoo liked to think he knew Moonlight like the back of his hand—it was busy on Mondays, Fridays, Saturdays, half full on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and nearly deserted on Wednesdays and Sundays. They were always out of vodka, and had too much whisky on hand. The star lights were broken in three places—one was taped together.

         There was something soothing about routine, and yet it unnerved him. The structure of it, the solidity of it. He wasn’t used to dependence, to having something strong enough to rely on and allowing himself to rely on it.

         Operation Moonlight was a thing of the past at this point. Seongwoo wasn’t sure what he wanted from the mess of their relationship, but he wanted it. And he knew that with his track record, romance would only end in a punch in the face and a final slammed door.  

         It was a Wednesday night when he walked into Moonlight. Outside, the sky was cloudless, and the natural light shone on the steps, casting his shadow in dark shapes. It was almost foreign—the lights were dimmed, the star lights dotting the wood with pricks of silver. Minhyun had his back to him, fiddling with a switch on the taps. Seongwoo opened his mouth to speak, but he turned around.

         “Your usual?” he asked, and there was something painful about that. It said: this is something you created. It said: this is something you don’t want to lose. It said: this is something permanent. Minhyun cocked his head when he didn’t answer, and he nodded wordlessly, taking a seat at the bar.  
They didn’t speak at first, not tonight. Minhyun was running a damp washcloth over the tables; Seongwoo was downing glass after glass of whisky. At one point, it stopped tasting like cinnamon, or anything at all. It was simply fire, and the absence of it.

         “Slow down,” he said, and his voice was a whisper in the stale air, only audible because of the silence buzzing around it. Seongwoo looked up belatedly, and glanced over, but he’d gone back to scrubbing at the linoleum.

         His hand snaked forward, looking for the rapidly emptying bottle of whisky, and found a hand wrapping around his own instead.

         “Enough for now,” Minhyun said quietly.

         Seongwoo tilted his head, blinking at him in confusion. After a few seconds—or a few minutes, he couldn’t tell—he slurred, “You said that last time too.”

         Minhyun glanced at him, then, and his gaze was unreadable, eyes glittering in the near darkness. “What?”

         “You told me to slow down,” Seongwoo recalled, with wistfulness and with bitterness. How far they’d come—how far they could fall. “And I asked if business was good. And you said that it wasn’t but that—“

         “That I didn’t think you’d leave soon,” he finished, eyes fixed on his.

         “What do you think now, then?” he asked. “Is business really that good?”

         “No,” Minhyun said. “But I know you won’t leave now.”

         Seongwoo didn’t answer—he didn’t think he could. Fear sparked in him, and something else too—yearning. He wanted this to be permanent, wanted it so badly it left a lump in the back of his throat. But he thought of his birth, of his childhood. He was nothing more than a newspaper bound infant drifting through houses like a discarded tissue. Permanency was a dream; the glitter of a moon too far to touch and yet close enough to idolize.

         Minhyun leaned forward then, and Seongwoo let him, this foreign yearning and the remnants of his schoolboy crush mingling in his chest as it squeezed tight. He ran the pad of his thumb over his cheekbone, over the piece of gauze and the dark red spilling through it. Then he pulled away, silent, and refilled his cup.

         “How is it?” A one word question, slung over his shoulder as he rifled through a cabinet.

         Seongwoo’s fingers froze, curled around the edge of the glass. “How’s what?”

         “Your cheek. Does it hurt?”

 _Did it hurt?_ It did hurt, but not physically. It was the low burn of scraped skin superimposed over the harsh stinging reminder of who he’d been. He’d had fun, he’d partied, he’d dated, and he’d never held on.

         And who was he now?

         “A little bit,” he said carefully, gingerly fingering the wound himself. “Better than last night.”

         Minhyun heaved a sigh, shutting the cabinet and pulling up a stool so that he sat face to face with him, eyes tilted slightly down at his. Seongwoo didn’t look up, and took another sip of whisky. “Why are you a… a heartbreaker?”

         The word curled around his tongue, puckering his lips as if it was foreign. There was so much confusion there—so much naiveté. A heartbreaker; it seemed too thin and yet too much, a hollow word with little meaning. Seongwoo let the whisky drip down the back of his throat, fire on raw skin, before answering.

         “The word’s wrong,” he said flatly. “I’m not trying to break hearts.”

         “Then what are you trying to do?” Oh, what a question.

         Seongwoo shrugged. “Dating—everyone’s looking for love, y’know. The one. Someone to stay with, something permanent. Me? I’m just looking for a way to pass the time.” He brought the glass to his lips again and frowned when cold ice brushed his skin instead. He sighed and put it back down. “I do it ‘cause I’m bored, and that hurts them. Does that answer your question?”

         Minhyun didn’t say anything, only plucked his cup from his hands and filled it with water before placing it back down with a hint of force, the vibration thrumming through his fingers. Seongwoo looked down at the water, at the amber tint from the vestiges of whisky and the ice distorting the surface—it looked almost golden. Something about that tore at him a little bit, a twinging sensation brief and yet so expansive that for just a second, he couldn’t breathe. A voice, clear and beautiful and discordant with the thick silence, brought him back to reality.

         “You’re lying.”

         Seongwoo flinched, hand knocking into the glass, and the single touch rippled the surface. His mind was clouded, but he managed a quiet, “I’m not lying.”

         “Here’s what I think,” Minhyun went on, ignoring him. Seongwoo didn’t dare look up, at those unreadable eyes and this boy who managed him to read him so easily.

         This was how it happened—skin against skin, the cold press of his finger against his chin tilting him up, up, up.

         His eyes fixed on Seongwoo’s as if he were the only person alive, burning with some unknown intensity that made his mouth dry out. He thought, dazedly, that there were constellations in those eyes—a cosmos captured in his irises.

         “You’ve got a hole,” he said, and his voice was smooth, yet it carried a hint of bitterness. He dropped his finger to Seongwoo’s chest and ran it over his collarbone, and just slightly under. “Right here. Some emptiness in your heart, and you’ve had it all your life. And all your life, you’ve tried to fill it up and pack it away—girl after girl after boy after girl. But you’ve never managed to, have you?”

         This was how it happened—the beat of his heart thrumming against him, the tangled thoughts in his head, and the aching hollow inside.  
Seongwoo didn’t answer him.

         Minhyun pulled his finger away and picked up his glass of water, taking a single sip before setting it down again, keeping his eyes on him the entire time. He blew a breath out, turning to wipe his hands from the damp glass before adding, “We’re all looking for something, Seongwoo.”

         A couple beats passed, then, and Minhyun picked up a folded towel and scrubbed at the edge of the counter before moving to the tables. Finally, Seongwoo found his voice. “How do you—how can you tell?”

         Minhyun didn’t look up when he answered, his voice ringing out above the soft sound of cloth against varnished wood. “I have the same one.”

         That night, Seongwoo went home late—somewhere around four.

         The alcohol had worn off for the most part, the occasional slur in his words and his trudging gait serving as remnants of its influence. Despite his best intentions, the creaking door alerted most of his roommates to his uncharacteristically late return.

         Seongwoo left his bag on the couch, and by the time he returned to the main room with a glass of water, Daniel, Sungwoon, and Jisung had already taken a seat, silently staring at him, demanding some sort of explanation.

         “I’m tired,” he said flatly, taking a sip of water. “And drunk. And kinda sick. Achoo.”

         “Why are you so late?” Jisung asked, completely ignoring his previous statement.

         “Got drunk. And sick. And wore myself out. Is this an intervention or something?”

         The trio didn’t answer, but exchanged a meaningful look with each other before getting up and dispersing. Daniel patted Seongwoo on the back as he walked past him. “The cough syrup’s in the cabinet, hyung.”

         Seongwoo didn’t sleep well that night. He stared at the ceiling for a while, before tossing and turning in bed and finally returning to the kitchen. He pulled the bottle of cough syrup out and inspected it carefully. He poured out a single dose, the viscous bittersweet medicine dripping down the back of his throat.

         But his chest still hurt.  
  
…  
  
         Seongwoo woke up late that afternoon, sunlight streaming through the blinds in the main room. The clock flashed a bright yellow 3:43. Fuck. A whole day out the window, and a skipped calculus class.

         Sungwoon walked in, then, and raised his eyebrows, whistling lowly. “Look who’s finally up.”

         Seongwoo groaned, carding a hand through his hair. “Don’t.”

         He didn’t say anything to that, disappearing for a few seconds before handing him a mug of tea. “How’s the fever?”

         “I had a fever?”

         Sungwoon sighed, taking a seat on the arm of the sofa. “Yeah, Jisung hyung was super worried.”

         Seongwoo tilted the cup back, the warm liquid spilling down his raw throat. It was a calming sensation, but the unease of the previous night still tugged at him.

         He remembered it so well, the pictures printed against the insides of his eyelids. Minhyun’s last words, something torn between a challenge and a confession.

         “Are you going back there tonight?” Sungwoon’s voice was quiet, and the timbre of it was foreign, a rare note of worry softening it.

         “Why shouldn’t I?” Seongwoo replied carefully.

         Sungwoon only shook his head. “There was something off about you last night. Besides the fever. Just… take care of yourself, Seongwoo-yah.”

         It was an uncharacteristically sober statement, and it settled, like a layer of ash, at the bottom of Seongwoo’s stomach.

         That night, it was snowing.

         Only a little bit—it was a cloud of white and silver dusting the campus. It crusted the edges of the Moonlight sign, the ivory crescent moon dotted with off white crystals.

         When Seongwoo descended the steps, he could hear the faint tinkle of music from within. He strained his ear to hear more, a few feet from the open door. It was a tinny sound, crackling from an old radio.

         It was a song he didn’t know, some love story gone wrong. The notes echoed in the expanses of the bar, and there was something frosted over about them. A snowflake fell on Seongwoo’s nose, melting into nothing in a fraction of a second.

         Drawn by some unknown force, he walked soundlessly into the bar. It seemed almost gutted out—unusual for a Thursday night. Nearly all the lights were off, save for the star lights dangling from the rafters, and the thin glow of the radio clock.

         Minhyun was sitting with his back facing him, almost mirroring the position from the night before. His head was hung, tilted only slightly down, as if caught up in some painful thought. His hands were sprawled over the table beside him, and he looked uncharacteristically small tucked into the chair, as if a single winter wind could knock him down.

         There was something mesmerizing about the song, about the tumble of his hair over his forehead as he watched the floor in a daze. It tugged at the edges of that hollow inside him, unraveling the threads pulled tight around it, and the vastness of it, coupled with everything else, was almost suffocating.  
         Minhyun moved to get up abruptly, the creak of the chair against the wood paneling harsh in the soft near silence.

         This was how it happened—the melted snow in Seongwoo’s hair, the confessions trapped in the back of his throat, the fear nipping at his heels telling him to leave.

         Yet he was paralyzed.

         Seongwoo exhaled, and it puffed in the air. Minhyun turned to look at him, his movements slow yet sure, as if he was trapped in amber. Alarm flashed in his eyes, a vulnerable sort of shock, before it softened into something bittersweet and wistful. He whispered, barely audible even in the quiet, “Seongwoo.”

         He opened his mouth to say something, anything at all, but he couldn’t. Minhyun’s lips curved upward in a facsimile of a smile, too sad to pass for anything else.

         The silence fell between them, soft and heavy, a blanket of snow yet so much less crushing.

         “The bar’s not open tonight,” he finally added, and Seongwoo noted the hoarseness in his voice.

         “I noticed,” he replied, and his voice was too small, too brittle. “Why?”

         His shoulders twitched in a shrug. “’m not sure, really. Didn’t wanna work, nobody forced me. None of the others’re coming in either.” He pulled his arms up and stretched slightly, before tilting his head at him. “So, no drinks. I’m sure you can go one night without your whisky.”

         Seongwoo didn’t give a fuck about his whisky, but his mouth was too dry to respond. The song changed, then, to a k-indie ballad from the year before, bittersweet and soft in the emptiness of the bar. Minhyun tilted his head, drank it in, something unrecognizable and aching glittering in his dark eyes.

         It was beautiful, and frightening, the reality of all of this. Minhyun, soul bared in front of him, all shining tears and a raw heart behind it. And Seongwoo, a blunted scythe, being privy to it. There was some pride in this, but twice as much sorrow.

         Minhyun’s gaze was glassy and deep, a black hole trapped behind a hollowed out face. His eyes were searching, scorching—there was a yearning in them, an unanswerable question begging to be resolved. And he looked at Seongwoo as if he was the answer, for just a fraction of a second.

         “Dance with me,” Minhyun whispered, and it was less a question than it was a statement, pitched so low that Seongwoo could barely hear it.

         Seongwoo’s stomach bottomed out, all that ash and darkness falling away. A spark of pain pulsed at his temples— _stop it leave run end it now_ —but his mind was too clouded to act on it.

         This was how it happened—Seongwoo took a single step forward, foot thudding on the dusty wood.

         And then another, and another, and there was such little space between them now. Minhyun’s eyes took him in, looking for something again. Seongwoo wanted to tell him to stop, to tell him that there was nothing there he could possibly want.

         He put his hands on his shoulders, draped them around his neck, and his head was hung slightly. His hair was curled over his eyes again, but they still glittered through the cover. Seongwoo brought his hands up, unsure of where to put them, and Minhyun smiled, only a ghostly thing, before taking his fingers and placing them against the crook of his waist.

         His skin was warm through the thin fabric of his black button down, and the melted snow on Seongwoo’s fingers dampened it. It was a strange sensation, somewhat like coming home after a long trip. Having someone to come home to, having someone—it was foreign, put simply.

         He placed his other hand on his other hip, and the space between them closed. Seongwoo wasn’t sure who’d pulled the other closer, but Minhyun’s head was laid against his shoulder and his cheek was so warm, and Seongwoo had never felt this, and he was afraid.

_He was afraid._

         But he didn’t want it to end, and that was even worse.

         Something new and foreign pulled at his loose heartstrings, at the edges of that raw, gasping hollow. For just a fraction of a second, the pain there disappeared.

         For just a fraction of a second, Seongwoo felt whole.  
  
…  
  
         The next night, he was late.

         It was only a few minutes after one, but Minhyun wasn’t there. A freshman was wiping down the bar in his place. He looked up at him and cocked his head. “Are you here for Minhyun hyung?”

         He folded his arms uneasily. “Yeah? How’d you know?”

         “Minki hyung told me about you,” the boy said assuredly. “You just missed him—he went home for the night a couple minutes early. Do you need a drink?”

         And this was how he made the acquaintance of Park Woojin; college freshman, aspiring dancer, and as he called himself, professional energizer. The boy handed out a couple drinks before backtracking to chat with him. “I’m the only one the hyungs trust to take the early morning shift, because according to Minki hyung I have ‘the stamina of a long distance runner jammed into a twenty year old body’.”

         “That’s a compliment, from him at least,” Seongwoo congratulated him, taking a sip of his whisky. It tasted uncharacteristically bitter, almost metallic.

         “So,” Woojin continued, looking up abruptly and fixing Seongwoo with a piercing look. “Why are you here?”

         “I’m always here,” he replied, for lack of a better answer, before taking another drink.

         Woojin snorted. “Well, yeah. But why _do_ you come? Minki hyung says you have a crush on Minhyun hyung. He bet thirty dollars on it, but Youngmin hyung bet against it. He said you’re too…” his face pinched in concentration. “N-narcissis—narcississis—“

         “Narcissistic,” Seongwoo supplied. “I get called that a lot.”

         “So?” he asked again, his expression smoothing into curiosity and something akin to childish excitement. Seongwoo wished he could see it the same way. “Are you a narcississist? Or—“

         “I like the whisky,” he said firmly, even though they were both probably aware that the whisky at Moonlight was subpar at best. “Enough about me. Tell me about yourself.”

         The other boy shrugged. “There’s not much to say. I’m just here to get a degree.”

         Seongwoo snorted. “Bor _ing_. Are you dating anyone?”

         Woojin raised his eyebrows. “I don’t think you could call what I’m doing dating.”

         Apparently, he was involved in a situation far more complicated than Seongwoo’s—he’d been in love with his (unnamed) best friend for ten years, and recently, said best friend had gotten involved with someone. To retaliate, he was now involved with someone completely aware of his feelings on the entire situation. It was messy, to say the least.

         “Oof,” Seongwoo finally said, after eloquently organizing his thoughts. “That’s rough, buddy.”

         Woojin shrugged. “Well, you’re Ong Seongwoo. I bet you’ve had messier romantic escapades.”

         And he had—yet they felt foreign to him now. Seongwoo stared into the vestiges of his whisky, before handing him the glass. “Hit me. Why’d Minhyun go home early?”

         Woojin tilted more whisky into his cup, silent for a few seconds before he answered. “Family issues, he said. He’s pretty vague about that stuff, but I’ve picked up a lot of it.”

         “Like?” he asked, knowing full well that there was a line here that he was toeing, but he was bordering on tipsy and far too sad and curious for his own good.

         “Like…” The younger boy leaned against the bar, eyes closed in thought. “His family lives in Busan, so when there’s an issue he has to go all the way out and back, which he’s complained about. And a lot of his family lives together, so he sends money home a lot to help with expenses. And there’s like. Fights. I think? That’s probably the extent of it, to be honest—he’s quiet about himself, but in the way that you can’t really tell unless you think about it.”

         That struck something in Seongwoo. _How much did he even know about Minhyun?_ He could maybe fill a quarter page with what little he’d managed to glean—even then, it was painfully vague.

         “He’s not some cracked porcelain doll, though,” Woojin said firmly, and the admiration in his voice was clear. “Minhyun hyung is one of the strongest people I’ve ever met. You should be good to him.”

         Seongwoo looked up then, so quickly that pain ripped through his neck. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

         Woojin smiled enigmatically. “Whatever you want it to mean.”

         He raised his eyebrows, lips twitching. “Are all freshmen this wise?”

         “Oh,” he replied, resting his hands behind his head. “I’m definitely special.”

         The bell at the head of the bar tinkled then, and Seongwoo glanced over his shoulder.

_Oh._

         Seongwoo had seen Jonghyun around a lot after their initial meeting—like everyone else had said, he _was_ a pretty integral part of their student body. But they hadn’t… talked. Something about him, about his _eyes_ , still unnerved him; the way he seemed able to pass judgment on his entire existence within half a second of meeting him.

         Jonghyun didn’t see Seongwoo at first, striding up to the bar (who even _strode?)_ and taking a seat beside him. “I’ll have my usual, Woojin-ah.”  
Seongwoo took another awkward sip of whisky, unsure of how to go on. Maybe he could just get smashed and then let that guy deal with this mess. Suddenly revitalized by this idea, he tilted the rest of the cup into his mouth, nearly choking when the liquid burned down his throat.

         “Are you okay?” Jonghyun asked, turning to look at him. His eyes widened, only infinitesimally. _“Seongwoo?”_

         “F-fuck,” he croaked under his breath. At least he thought it was—prayed it was. This was fine. This was great. He was tipsy and lonely and on the verge of an existential crisis, and now he had to talk to Kim Fucking Jonghyun. He managed a weak, “Hey.”

         “You should slow down,” Jonghyun said, eyebrows creasing in worry. “Why are you here this late anyway? Minhyun’s shift ended a long time ago.”

         Oh, what a question. “I’m really f-fine. I drink a lot more on a regular basis. And uh… I wanted to get to know Woojinie here!”

         Woojin only raised his eyebrows, pouring Jonghyun’s drink silently.

         Jonghyun blinked, but nodded slowly. “Fair enough?”

         From there, they fell into an easy conversation. Jonghyun was talented at small talk, Seongwoo noted. Some combination of his warm smile, penchant for useless knowledge, and easygoing demeanor had an almost calming effect.

         But eventually, they exhausted the cursory introductory information, and all the campus scandals and current events, circling back to what seemed to be their common factor.

         “How long have you known Minhyun?” Seongwoo slurred. He’d lost track of the glasses again, which was probably a bad sign.

         Jonghyun, however, was similarly inebriated. “Hmm… Maybe… Ten… Twelve… Fourteen years… A long time, you know…”

         Seongwoo laughed. “That’s a… long time…”

         Woojin was watching the exchange with something bordering horror and disappointment. “Hey, hyungs—“

         “Shh…” they both said simultaneously, pressing a finger to their lips sloppily. Seongwoo snickered at their synchronization, wagging his finger in front of him.

         They fell into silence then, and after a few minutes, Jonghyun spoke up again. “He’s… he’s very important to me, Seongwoo. So important, but…”

         “But…?” he mumbled, laying his head against the counter. The wood was cool against his cheek, dry against the sweat beading on his forehead.

         “I don’t think… we’ll ever fit properly. The way sometimes I dream of. Two puzzle pieces meant to sit close, yet not together. D’you… understand?”

         Seongwoo’s chest hurt, the edges of that hollow folding over and tugging hard at a beating heart, at flesh and blood. Did he understand? _Oh, what a question._ After a few seconds, he whispered an agreement.

         Jonghyun heaved a sigh, and sucked at his empty glass. “And I don’t… mind that. But if it was m-me, at least I could make sure he was happy.” He laid his head down on the counter, then, beside Seongwoo’s, and his eyes were unbearably sad, a thousand regrets glittering in the dark iris. “But I can only watch him get hurt, and try to help… He doesn’t deserve it, you know.” His voice held a bit of fire, almost frightening in its intensity. “He’s too good for all this, but he always gets hurt anyway. I wish I could take that away.”

         Seongwoo didn’t know what to say to that. He felt like a fraud in the midst of all this, all his mistakes and pain and losses that he’d curled up deep in that dark hollow unfurling in him. And yet he was too small for it, and it pressed at his skin painfully, aching for him to acknowledge it, begging him to stop. Who was he? A sum of his decisions, and he’d never been good at making the right choice. A product of his circumstances, and he’d never had the best luck.  
         This was how it happened—a boy who had only ever hurt and a boy who had only ever been hurt, and the closing space between them.

         “Y’know,” Jonghyun went on, “When I first heard you were meeting with him, I didn’t really like it. You’re okay now, of course. But earlier this year, and before… You’ve never seemed to care much for the people you keep close to you. I dunno… the things you’ve said to people, the things you’ve done… I don’t like to judge people by what others think of them, but you seemed to thrive on it. The hatred, that is. And the awe.”

         The hatred, and the awe. And the pity beneath it all.

         Seongwoo was used to it all; it was all he’d known. It was what he’d been weaned on. House to house, family to family—narcissism wasn’t the right word. He didn’t care much for himself, only whether others did.

         No such thing as bad press, after all.

         Finally, he forced himself to speak, mouth dry from the alcohol. “You’re right.”

         Jonghyun blinked at him. “About what?”

         Seongwoo blew a breath out before answering. He brought up a hand to touch the skin beneath his collarbone, where Minhyun had brushed his finger a couple nights before. The abyss seemed almost animate under his skin, a roiling, yearning, feral creature. “Everything.”

  
…  
  
         Seongwoo didn’t go to Moonlight Saturday night.

         Karaoke with his roommates was canceled too, so he and Daniel went up to the roof to drink.

         The wind was biting, yet he barely felt it. Daniel glanced at him after he pulled himself through the hatch in the corner of the cement floor. There was something uneasy about his gaze—that was how they all looked at him these days. As if they could sense the change tearing through him, the wonder and the loneliness that fell in its shadow.

         “Hyung,” Daniel said, and a bitter smile bit at Seongwoo’s lips because he just _knew_ what he was going to say. “You shouldn’t drink too much tonight. You’re still kind of sick, and you haven’t been sleeping much and—“

         “I’ll be fine,” Seongwoo said lightly, the iron behind his voice tightening Daniel’s mouth in sadness.

         They spread their blankets beside each other and took a seat, going through a couple cans each before finally speaking again. Seongwoo lied down on the scratchy cotton, the stars above him spinning wildly.

         “How’s Operation Moonlight going?” Daniel asked tentatively, legs crossed as he leaned his back against the cement ledge.

         Seongwoo snorted before pulling himself up on his elbows. “It’s over.”

         Daniel cocked his head in confusion, a somewhat canine action. “What d’you mean by that?”

         He spread his hands, and then crossed them in an X. “Done. Over. Finished. It was a mess in the first place.”

         “I thought you li—“ Daniel caught himself, and Seongwoo’s eyebrows rose into his hairline. “I thought you said Minhyun-ssi was cute. Is he annoying or…?“

         “No,” Seongwoo replied slowly. “But he’s looking for something more.”

         “And?”

         “There’s nothing more—there’s just this. I’m always going to end up disappointing him.” Seongwoo tilted the rest of the can into his mouth, and paused a few seconds before continuing. “I’m not… I’m not going to do this anymore. Especially not to him. I think we’re better as friends.”  
Daniel didn’t say anything to that, only took another sip of beer.

         “Seongwoo hyung,” Daniel finally said some indeterminable amount of time later. “We’re here for you, you know. Like we’ve always been.”

         That tore at him for some reason—the people closest to him were still so far away. The walls he’d built were indomitable, yet someone who’d been little more than a stranger only months ago had hacked a hole through the bricks.

         “I know,” Seongwoo replied easily, too easily.

         Daniel nodded once in satisfaction, a smile flickering on his lips, and his chest ached. But they didn’t say anything more that night. Seongwoo laid down again a couple minutes later, and that was the last thing he remembered—the darkness above him, and the light in it, and how it all seemed to laugh at him.  
  
…

  
         This was how it happened—ten minutes to seven, with a half empty bottle of whisky and some dumb romcom playing on his laptop screen.

         He wasn’t even paying attention, not really, only counting down the seconds until he ruined his life. It was so hard to do consciously, he thought dazedly. To find something so important to you, something so special, and toss it into the wind so carelessly.

         Yet he couldn’t hold on—he couldn’t do that to him.

         This was better for both of them. Or at least that’s what he convinced himself.

         Tick tock, flashing at the back of his head as the girl on screen cried her heart into a tub of ice cream. There was a bitter joke in that, but Seongwoo didn’t have the heart to mull it over.

         No, this was better.

         This was how it happened—ten minutes after seven, and Seongwoo’s heart hollowing out, like someone had taken an ice pick to it.

         On screen, the guy had driven to the girl’s family house, where she’d hidden out. He had a bouquet in the backseat, and his heart on his sleeve. Seongwoo watched it with no little amount of resent. He threw open the door, confessed his undying love—like it was so easy.

         Love wasn’t good, and it sure as hell wasn’t easy. That was the first time Seongwoo saw it as that, as love. It was probably the last, too.

         This was how it happened—a few minutes before eleven, and the empty whisky bottle on Seongwoo’s nightstand, and the regret tearing through him like a hurricane.

         But it was for the best.

_Wasn’t it?_

         Oh, fuck it.

         Daniel opened the door, then, to Seongwoo slamming his laptop closed and getting up and almost tripping over himself. His actions were rushed and tangled, as if he could manage to reverse his mistakes if he moved just a bit faster.

         “Hyung,” he said, worry coloring his voice, taking his arm and steadying him. “What’s wrong? Where are you going?”

         “To fuck this up even more,” Seongwoo muttered under his breath before pulling his arm out and closing the door just a bit too hard behind him. He caught Sungwoon’s eyes before he left, alarm and sadness mingling there.

         It was a quarter past eleven when he made it to Moonlight, breathless and sweaty even with snow coming down around him. The lights on the sign were flickering for the first time, shuttering between a light gray and fluorescent white color.

         There was something foreboding about that—as if things were different now, irreversible and unrecognizable. But Seongwoo didn’t care anymore. He knew how it would all end, he knew the pain he’d set himself up for, but he had to try one last time.

         The door was closed for once. Only slightly, and the open sign still flashed in bright blue, but it was still closed. Seongwoo’s heart skipped a beat, and unease choked him, thick, like cotton stuck in his throat. _This is a bad idea._

         He should’ve been used to bad ideas at this point. They seemed to be the only kind he followed through on.

         Seongwoo opened the door.

         This was how it happened—Minhyun wiping down the counter, the bar completely empty, and all the star lights out.

         The room was cast in golden light from the torch lights on the walls, but there was something washed out about it, aged and rotted. Minhyun looked up when Seongwoo walked in, the click clack of his boots on the wood floor too loud to ignore. He had never been easy to read, but his gaze was completely blank now.

         “We’re closed,” Minhyun said, looking down, and his voice was smooth. “I’m cleaning up for the night.”

         “Oh,” Seongwoo said, and he cursed himself at the plainness of it, at how it said so much and yet said nothing at all. All his bravado, torn away. He didn’t recognize the man, no, the _boy_ standing in place of him.

         This was how it happened—a boy who had only been broken and a boy with stars in his eyes, and the gaping chasm between them.

         “Is there a reason why you’re here, Seongwoo-ssi?” Minhyun asked carefully, the honorific cutting deep into those hanging heartstrings suspended in his chest. He wrung the towel in the sink as he spoke, a single backwards glimpse the only sign that he was still aware of his presence.

         Thoughts tore away at him—to tell the truth, to say it was an accident, to apologize. So many paths, and yet he knew none of them would work out. The words choked him; his lips were parted, but he couldn’t speak.

         Minhyun glanced at him, then, drying his hands on his pants before untying his apron. He heaved a sigh, some deep yawning sadness opening in his eyes for a fraction of a second, before it disappeared in the next moment. He opened a closet near the door and pulled out a dark blue coat—the one he’d worn the first day they’d met. He pulled it on carefully, taking his time. Seongwoo knew what he was doing—he was stalling, giving him time to say what he needed to say.

         He had always been kind like that.

         Finally, Minhyun moved to stand beside him, facing the snow outside while Seongwoo’s eyes were glued to the opposite wall. He said, “It’s okay, you know. I shouldn’t have expected anything. It’s my fault, so—“ His breath hitched, and he closed his eyes for a few seconds before continuing. “It’s my fault, so don’t feel too bad. You’re right. This… this was never going to—“

         “Don’t,” Seongwoo cut in, the words spilling out of his mouth. His chest hurt. “Please.”

         Minhyun smiled at Seongwoo, then, and there was no naiveté in his gaze—only the slightest hint of wistful sadness. “I’ll see you around, then.”

         They didn’t.  
  
…

         The next night, Minhyun wasn’t there.

         It was just busy enough for Seongwoo to feel unbalanced, purposeless almost. _Why was he even here?_ He couldn’t pin the reason down—he’d finished his last class and gotten microwave ramen at a convenience store for dinner and then walked through the streets aimlessly, looking for something he couldn’t place.

         And now he was here.

         Woojin was wiping down the counter, eyes flicking up in interest when Seongwoo pulled up a stool. He cocked his head. “Minhyun hyung isn’t here.”

         “I can tell,” Seongwoo retorted drily. He wasn’t looking at Woojin, not really. His gaze wandered across the room—he knew it was supposed to be familiar, yet it looked foreign tonight, the shapes cast by the torch lights sharp and discomfiting.  

         “Then why are you here?” It was a simple enough question, but it sent a chill down Seongwoo’s spine.

_Why was he even here?_

         “The whisky,” he replied, just for the sake of it, and the lie hung in the air between them.

         Woojin said nothing, only raised his eyebrows and poured him a glass. Seongwoo downed it, but it left nothing but a sting in the back of his throat.

         “Well,” he said, after some time. “I hope that’s all you come for.”

         Seongwoo glanced up then, eyes hooded. “What do you mean?”

         The other boy shrugged, running his fingers along each other erratically before stretching. “Minhyun hyung. You like him.”

         His lips parted immediately in a protest, but he couldn’t find the words to say. “It’s not—we’re not—I’d never—“

         Woojin laughed. “So I’m right.”

         Seongwoo decided to shut up.

         “A little birdie told me he’s out on a date right now,” he added, and there was something apologetic about his voice. “With Jonghyunie hyung. Thought you should know.”

_Oh._

         When he spoke, his voice was small. “Thanks.”

         Another pause, twice as long as the last one, and then, “You know, you’re a pretty good guy, Seongwoo hyung.”

         He laughed, but it was a humorless sound. “Is that a compliment?”

         Woojin grinned, his snaggletooth poking out. “If you want it to be.”  
  
…  
  
         Seongwoo was a sadist, or something of the sort. He had to be. That was the only possible reason why he spent night after night at Moonlight, long hours stretching into the morning until Minki walked in and called Daniel to pick his ass up.

         Minki had figured out why the second morning, and had pulled up a stool while Daniel drove over. Seongwoo hadn’t really been paying attention, stirring his empty glass aimlessly as he’d stared at the lights above him.

         “Seongwoo,” he’d said, frowning when he didn’t answer. He’d tapped his shoulder. “Hey. Ong Seongwoo. Earth to Ong.” After that had produced no reaction, he’d reached over and pulled the glass from him, the straw in his hands falling onto the counter.

         Seongwoo had glanced at him. “Minki.”

         Minki had heaved a sigh. “Finally. What the hell happened to you?”

         He hadn’t answered at first, considering how to pass this all off as normal. Before he had the chance to reply, though, Minki had spoken again. “I’m sure you’ve noticed by now, but Minhyun doesn’t take the eleven o’clock shift anymore. He does it earlier. At seven.”

         Seongwoo’s heartstrings had tangled and untwisted painfully, hanging there in that cage of a chest. “Good for him.”

         Minki had laughed then, but it’d been a humorless sound. “I never thought I’d live to see the day Ong Seongwoo got his heart broken.”

         It was a funny choice of words—was it really heartbreak if Seongwoo had taken in his own heart in his hands and snapped it? Seongwoo had opted to say nothing to that, fingering the discarded straw and pool of melting ice around it.

         “Don’t fuck yourself over like this, Seongwoo,” Minki had said finally, and he had felt his piercing gaze on him. “Go home. Take a nap or something. Don’t spend half your day getting fucking wasted and spend the other half falling asleep in your classes.”

         “So Daniel told you about that,” he’d said, voice slightly hoarse. “It was only once, really.”

         Minki had just shook his head. “Never thought I’d be in the position to tell you this, but… take care of yourself, for fuck’s sake, Seongwoo.”

         His lips had twisted in a bitter smile, a protest and a curse dangling at the tip of his tongue, when Daniel had knocked on the door lightly. His expression had been carefully blank, but his lips had been drawn into a tight line that’d made Seongwoo’s stomach churn.

         The ride home had been silent, for the most part. Frustration and sadness had rolled off Daniel in waves, but he didn’t dare say a word.

         “Hyung,” he’d said finally, just as Seongwoo was about to shut the car door. He’d looked back, noted the hurt in his eyes. “We have alcohol at home too, you know.”

         Seongwoo had always thought the most of himself, on the outside at least. It was a puffed up inferiority complex that had kept him going, but he’d never really believed it. But in that moment, he’d truly hated himself.

         But as much as he hated it, he couldn’t stop.

         Couldn’t was wrong, he knew. He could do anything, if he really wanted to. But he wanted nothing—he was tugged along by an invisible string tying together all the ghosts of everything he used to hold dear. And it always led him back there.

         He was different now, he knew that—all the different people inside him, all the crumpled personality traits and plastic smiles and that little spark, flickering in the night, all shoved somewhere deep and far from the light. He was different; maybe better, maybe worse. He didn’t like to think about it, think about the person he could’ve been, the choices he could’ve made.

         This was how it happened—a million barely noticeable shifts in the universe, a frame shift into something wholly foreign and yet all the same.

         Every morning at five, Daniel waited outside Moonlight. Jisung started buying tea to help with insomnia, and packed the mini fridge full of energy drinks. Sungwoon texted him once a day, maybe twice, with links to recorded lectures and notes he’d gotten from his classes. Seongwoo didn’t drop music comp, but when he was up to it, slept in the back of the lecture hall. Jonghyun didn’t hold Seongwoo’s gaze when he saw him around, something like anger and pity mingling in his eyes briefly for that one moment in which their eyes met.

         They didn’t see each other.

         They didn’t see each other, but Seongwoo didn’t forget. He _couldn’t_ forget. It was hard to forget about someone like him, or rather someone who had done as much as him. The sun still shone, that was true. But nights were so dark; nothing but a handful of stars and a hollow where the moon had once hung.  
  
…  
  
         This was how it happened—a ghost of a boy, and a dream of one, and the line, just barely there, where they touched.

         It was exams week. It was beginning to warm, the air full of the light fragrance of blossoms, but it only made Seongwoo nauseous. By now, it was a routine almost—to stay home and study would’ve been stranger than bringing his textbooks into Moonlight.

         So that’s exactly what he did. Woojin eyed his notes with distaste. “Are you really going to get drunk while you study for your exams, hyung?”

         Seongwoo snorted. “They’re just midterms. I’ll live.”

         He raised his eyebrows and muttered something like, “Your grades won’t,” but didn’t say anything further.

         “Brat,” he coughed, and Woojin only grinned.

         Admittedly, it wasn’t the best idea. But Seongwoo wasn’t known for good ideas—he was known for doing the dumbest shit possible, and barely holding on through the aftermath.

         But even the regulars cared about their grades to some degree or another, and soon enough, the bar emptied out.

         This was how it happened—coming up on four A.M. and economics beginning to swim in front of his eyes. His throat was starting to dry out, all old cinnamon and the sting of alcohol. Seongwoo’s eyelids were fluttering closed every few seconds, cheek flat against the cold face of his textbook.

         There was a slight tinkling in the doorway, and that was how Seongwoo knew he was dreaming.

         This was how it happened—a flash of blue wool and the flicker of star lights and the ache in Seongwoo’s chest at the familiarity and the impossibility of it all.

         The figure moved closer, and wordlessly began to clean up Seongwoo’s pens and papers. He tilted his head up, squinting in a futile attempt to discern the other’s features. “Minki?”

         The other figure froze suddenly, hands dangling above his stack of economics notes as if paralyzed. Then he shook his head, and continued.

         “This is a dream, right?” Seongwoo murmured, voice just barely audible, and the figure flinched before nodding slowly. He smiled somewhat sleepily and tilted his head back down. “I thought so. There’s no way you’d be here if this was real life. Right, Minhyun-ah?”

         He paused, reorganizing his fuzzy thoughts, before continuing. “I can call you that, right? Since this is a dream… There’s so many things I want to tell you, you know. And ask you. Like what your favorite fruit is. And whether you’re happy. That’s a bit of a non sequitur, ‘m sorry. I do want to know, though—whether you’re happy or not. Whether I really did the right thing. Because you told me I did, but I don’t think it’s supposed to hurt this much.”

         There was a soft inhale, but Seongwoo ignored it. “I don’t think you can answer me, because you’re just a figment of my imagination, made to feed me what I want to hear, right? But that’s okay. I don’t think I could ever tell you this in real life, so this is good enough. I’m sorry. And thank you—for everything, really. And…”

         The silence stretched between them, confessions tangled in Seongwoo’s throat, and the figure, the dream silhouette, frozen in place. He heaved a deep breath, all the remnants of the broken feelings he’d tried to repress washing across him in a huge tidal wave. “And… I like you. I always did, you know. I think I could’ve loved you; I think maybe I still do. But it’s past now. It’s… it’s past.”

         The boy in the blue wool coat, the outline of him, at least, remained frozen for a few minutes. There was a slight tremor in his shadow, the blurry form of him jagged in the uneven lighting of the bar.

         A deep breath, and then fingers moving quickly, organizing the rest of his things. Seongwoo watched him move, dangling between consciousness and darkness. After he finished, he put his hands on Seongwoo’s face, cold skin against his clammy cheeks. He slid the textbook out from under his head and softly closed it, placing it beside the rest of his materials. Then he disappeared for a few minutes, the only sign he was still there the metallic twist of keys in a rusted lock. He returned with a small throw pillow, little more than a stuffed coin purse, and lifted his head lightly before placing it under it. There was a pause then, and the figure pulling off his coat before draping it over Seongwoo’s trembling shoulders. He hadn’t realized he was shaking until he stopped.

         The coat smelled faintly of strawberries and vanilla.

         That was the last Seongwoo remembered of it. But that morning, a couple minutes after six, Minki shook him awake lightly. There was a strange expression on his face, and it made Seongwoo uneasy.

         “What’s wrong?” he mumbled, consonants slurring and softening with sleep.

         “Nothing,” Minki said quickly. “Daniel’s waiting outside for you. You should go and get some rest before your exam today.”

         “Mm,” he murmured in agreement, pulling himself to his feet. It was then that the coat fell to the floor. Seongwoo bent down and picked it up, his heart still for what seemed like an eternity.

         He brought it to his nose tentatively, inhaling sharply at the faint, but familiar, bite of berry and vanilla.

_Oh._

         This was how it happened—a ghost of a boy, and a dream of one, and the unsaid words between them.  
  
…  
  
         Midterms finished quickly, and finals loomed behind them. That night, dream or not, faded into the recesses of Seongwoo’s memories, something he couldn’t afford to remember.

         But the nearly pregnant absence in the sky, in Seongwoo’s chest—that followed him.

         Sometimes it angered him—the way it seemed to linger in his shadow, the stab of regret and the falling sensation right before he fell asleep. He wanted nothing more than peace, but he doubted he deserved it.

         This was how it happened—Seongwoo stumbling into music comp a couple minutes early and trudging towards his seat in the last row. He hadn’t bothered to polish himself up that morning, and his hair fell in a tangle over his eyes, barely concealing the redness there.

         The chatter of the class stuttered at his entrance, less a stop and more a shift that he couldn’t quite read. He didn’t need to look up to know his eyes were on him; he could feel it like heat on his face, sending pricks through his skin.

         He turned his head away slightly, and pulled himself up to his seat.

         “Today,” the professor started, before clearing her throat. “Ong, pay attention this time—we’ll be picking partners for our final project of the semester. It’s a partner composition, in which both partners will work together on writing and composing a song and we’ll listen to it in a gallery showing. Due to complications concerning in this past years, I’ll be choosing the partners.”

         ‘Complications in the past years’ had been, according to Sungwoon, a partnership submitting a three minute song on sucking dick. He hadn’t mentioned who the partnership was, but Seongwoo had his suspicions. Seongwoo leaned against the squeaky plastic of the chair and closed his eyes, the muted chatter of the room thrumming at his temples.

         The professor started listing partners, but he didn’t recognize any of the names. He fingered his jean pocket, pulling at the edges of his phone case when he heard it.

         “Ong Seongwoo,” she said, and he pulled himself to an unsteady standing position. “And Hwang Minhyun.”

         It felt almost cruel; the way fate had thrown them together time after time. Seongwoo didn’t dare look at him—he didn’t dare look up.

         This was how it happened—some bastard of destiny, some discarded happily ever after, and a spider silk thin thread wrapped around their heartstrings tying them together. It said—it screamed: this is permanent.

         Permanency, or a joke of it.

         “I’m ending class early today,” she said, after finishing the list. “I’ll send out the requirements right now—it’s fairly extensive, so you should get started as soon as possible.”

         Great. This was fantastic. Some voice in the back of Seongwoo’s head suggested making minor small talk with him concerning the project, but the loudest voice was encouraging him to go back home and sleep for the next forty eight hours. Hibernate until he forgot who Ong Seongwoo was and asked the prof for another partner.

         It wasn’t a terrible idea, or at least he didn’t think it was one, and his steps were quick as he moved to the entrance. He knew making it out was futile, but he wanted to at least get lost in the mass.

         “Seongwoo!”

         Fuck.

         “Ong Seongwoo, I swear to god, if you don’t get back here—“

         “Then what?” he said breathlessly, the words falling out of his mouth like a confession. It had been so long, really—the mere acknowledgement of him, the existence of this moment, felt like another 4 A.M. pipe dream.

         He looked surprised at that, and Seongwoo didn’t blame him. After months of seclusion, even his face seemed different. And yet, it didn’t. He remembered that night in the bar, then, the ballad playing and the searing warmth of skin on cotton on skin.

         It wasn’t foreign, no. It was a single familiar thing in a world that had become alien to him.

         It was like coming home.

         Seongwoo hadn’t realized he wasn’t breathing until he spoke, the tangled breaths wrapping around his hurried words. “Then what, Minhyun-ssi?”

         Minhyun blinked, the slightest flinch picking at his posture at the honorific. There was some uncertainty in his eyes that unsettled Seongwoo—he had been a lot of things, but rarely uncertain. Finally, he muttered, “Well, you’re here now, so it doesn’t matter.”

         Seongwoo snorted but there was little humor. “Okay, what do you need me for?”

         He cocked his head, then, that familiar, infuriating, note of curiosity coloring his gaze. But when he spoke, he simply said, “We should get started. On the project, that is.”

         “It’s due in two weeks.”

         “Time is of the essence, Seongwoo-yah,” he reprimanded, and the déjà vu of it all was a bit too much. A pause, painful and tense, and then he added, “Let’s eat first. I haven’t had sushi in two months.”

_Oh._

         “Oh,” Seongwoo said. “Okay.”

         And that was enough. It was nothing, and yet it was enough. Minhyun smiled, and it was sad and it held no naiveté, such a far cry from what he knew, and yet it tore at him still.

         The walk over was less awkward than he’d expected, and that discomfited him even more. Ordering was hard, though, empty silences littering their words. Waiting for the food was even harder, though, and Seongwoo considered pulling out his phone to feign looking at social media.

         “Do you—“

         “How is—“

         Minhyun shook his head and looked down, ears tipping red. “You go first.”

         “Nothing important,” Seongwoo said, and it sounded weak even to him. “I was just gonna ask how it’s going with Jonghyun?”

         “Oh,” Minhyun said, voice unbearably small. “It’s okay. He’s good to me. Better than most, I suppose.”

         “I’m happy for you,” he replied, and the raw sincerity and the inherent lie in the statement twisted it grotesquely. “I really am.”

         “Thanks,” he returned, drawing out the last letter. “What about you?”

         “What about me?” Seongwoo asked evasively.

         “How have you been? Are you involved with someone?” It was a latent statement, a set of three missing the last one, and it seemed to hang in the air precariously.

         “I’ve been good,” he lied through his teeth. “And not really. I don’t think I should.”

         Minhyun blinked at that, tilting his head. “Why?”

         Words surged up at the back of his blistered throat, all the explanations he’d repeated until his tongue grew sore. But they choked him, and he only managed a simple, “I’m not… I can’t be what they’d need, y’know. That didn’t used to bother me, but now it does, I guess.”

         Minhyun poked pensively at the ice in his glass with his straw for a few seconds before glancing up again and staring at him intensely. There was a sense of silence then—his heart coiled tight in his chest, waiting, waiting, waiting. And the cosmos in his eyes; the poignancy of it all washed over him like a tidal wave.

         But he simply pulled back, pulling the glass to his chest and taking a sip just as the waiter returned with a full platter. He placed the water back down and toyed with a single piece of sushi before eating it thoughtfully. Without looking back at him, he said, “I thought you’d stopped that.”

         “Stopped what?” he retorted, and the defensiveness in his voice sounded almost juvenile, a thin crack on his veneer of apathy.

         Minhyun pointed his chopsticks at him, twirling them slightly. “Underestimating yourself.”

         Seongwoo scoffed. “I’m not sure if you got the memo, but I overestimate myself. It’s becoming a problem these days.”

         “No, you don’t,” he said, and there was a simplicity to the statement. A ringing truth to it, and it was frustrating. “You’ve never once thought yourself capable of anything except drinking yourself into a stupor, Seongwoo-yah. Don’t bother trying to lie to me.”

         “That’s not underestimating myself,” he replied, ignoring the last bit of the statement and taking a bite of his California roll. “It’s being self aware.”

         Minhyun simply raised his eyebrows. “If that’s what you wanna call it, sure.”

         Seongwoo wrinkled his nose and aggressively chewed his sushi. “I thought we were here to work on our project.”

         “You’re right,” he admitted, but there was little apology in his words. “I have a couple melodies, but not much else to jump off of. What about you?”

         It was funny—music comp had started out his worst nightmare, and it still was one, but the reason behind it had changed so radically it was unrecognizable. Maybe it was the late nights at his apartment, or the thrum of the radio late at night, or the twinkle of fading lights. But _after_ , Seongwoo hadn’t been able to get a certain melody out of his head. The lyrics were still undecided—he’d never been good with words. But the notes, the notes were always with him, nearly as omnipresent as that absence between his ribs.

         “I have a little something,” he said slyly, and he caught the flash of surprise in Minhyun’s eyes with no little amount of pride.

         “Really?” he asked, and he nodded. _“Are you sure?”_

         “Yes, I’m sure,” Seongwoo retorted sourly. “Stop acting like this is a Christmas miracle. It’s the middle of May.”

         Minhyun laughed then, sweet and disorganized as it was. His laugh had always enamored Seongwoo—a single second of disorder from someone so careful in his actions. But it disappeared twice as quick, and there was nothing left in its wake.

         “Are you free today?” Minhyun asked. The neutrality of it was almost discomfiting.

         “Yeah,” he replied. “And the apartment’ll be empty too—my roommates are out. You can come over to work, if you want.”

         Minhyun wrinkled his nose. “I’ve never been to your apartment.”

         “There’s firsts for everything,” he said absentmindedly, and for just a second, it felt normal. Like _before._

         But he just smiled. “Sounds good.”

         The walk home was strange. Spring was beginning to pull away, mingling with summer and leaving a sharp, almost bittersweet scent in the air. Minhyun tilted his head up as he moved, eyes just barely fluttered closed as if he was drinking it all in.

         Seongwoo couldn’t keep his eyes off him.

         There was a danger in that—in the magnetism there, in the way _this_ , whatever _this_ was, seemed so natural it was painful. Seongwoo wished he could let it happen—let it all fall into place, and loosen the fingers wrapped around his own throat.

         But alas. Some things, he thought, weren’t meant to be. The zombie apocalypse, immortality, and at the top of the list, Ong Seongwoo finding true love.

_True love._

         He had to stop watching shitty romcoms and eating ice cream every time he missed Minhyun. When Jisung got home, he was terminating their Netflix subscription.

         “Are you coming?” Minhyun asked, silhouette almost silver against the darkness of the hallway into the building behind him.

         “Mm?” he asked, blinking in confusion. “Oh. Yeah, sorry.”

         He pulled the keys out of his pocket, tracing the cold metal and tossing them lightly as they walked the stairs to the second floor. Their shoulders bumped with every step, warmth and then the absence of it, and Seongwoo forced himself to focus on the dangling fluorescent bulbs above them.  
He tried the door and found it surprisingly open, ducking into the apartment with a single outstretched hand behind him. Minhyun’s steps weren’t as hurried, and he could feel his eyes on the apartment, searching, analyzing.

         It was true that Seongwoo hadn’t changed in some ways—but neither had he.

         Seongwoo nodded towards the kitchen. “D’you want a cup of tea before we start? You like chamomile, right?”

         Minhyun’s lips twisted in a lopsided smile before he nodded. There was something magical about that, some beauty in the disorder of it.

_This can’t happen._

         It hit him like a wrecking ball, a realization that had pulsed at his temples all day. He yearned to leave it all behind, everything he had done and everything he had been just for this one moment. But he couldn’t.

_He has a boyfriend._

         “Oh, shut up,” Seongwoo muttered to himself.

         “What’s wrong?” Minhyun called.

         “I’m fine,” he responded, trying to lighten his tone. He dangled the tea bag in the mug and stirred it slightly before returning to the living room. “Here you go.”

         Minhyun accepted the cup and brought it to his lips with both hands, letting out a long sigh of satisfaction after the first sip. Seongwoo looked away, pulling his laptop off the side of the couch. He turned to face him, eyes on his back. “Is the demo on that?”

         Seongwoo only grunted an agreement, tucking himself into the crook of the cushions before opening it. Minhyun scooted closer, the warmth of his shoulder sending a shiver down his back. His fingers jolted against the keyboard, sending a keyboard smash into the search bar of Google Chrome.

         “Someone’s antsy,” Minhyun said, and they were so close that Seongwoo could feel his breath on his cheek.

         He said nothing, but opened up the application and clicked on the file. He’d last worked on it a couple days ago, trying to even out the flow of it. Minhyun’s eyes were glued to the screen, and the intensity in his gaze was surprising. But when he pressed play, his eyelids fluttered closed, some slack jawed blankness surging over his face as he laid his head back.

         When it finished, there were a couple beats of silence—the faint howl of the wind outside the only audible sound. Finally, Minhyun opened his eyes and drew himself together before studying the laptop screen with something just a little more than careful neutrality.

         Then he said, “Why did you write a confession song?”

         “What do you mean?” Seongwoo asked, because there was nothing else to ask, nothing else to say.

         Minhyun said nothing for a few seconds, eyes scanning the sound bite. The room was barely lit, and the glitter of the cosmos seemed a little dimmer than usual, a little lonelier than before. Abruptly, he turned his head to Seongwoo, and the rawness of it was almost overwhelming. His voice was small when he spoke, small and sad, yet strong. “I asked you why you wrote a confession song. A confession to the one who’d gotten away. A love story gone wrong.”

         “I di—“ Seongwoo stopped himself. He’d meant to say, _I didn’t._ But hadn’t he? Wasn’t that exactly what this was? He forced himself to speak, and there was a clarity to it that surprised him. “Because if I hadn’t, I would’ve gone mad.”

         A disbelieving smile flickered on Minhyun’s face, then, barely masking the denial, the crushing regret under it. “What are you trying to say, Seongwoo?”

         But Seongwoo had nothing to say—he’d never been good with words. This was all he had left, a couple minutes worth of the tinny melody of his snapping heartstrings. And so he leaned forward and pulled the cursor back, back, back until the song restarted, and prayed Minhyun could hear it.

         This time was different—Minhyun’s eyes were open, slightly widened and yet unreadable beyond that. His fingers were draped loosely over his knees as he leaned forward, and a tremor ran through them. And when it finished, some mangled laugh left his throat. Where there was meant to be humor, there was only pain, and Seongwoo’s chest constricted painfully at the sound.

         “We’re a mess,” Minhyun finally wheezed, smiling with no little amount of effort. “This—this is such a fucking mess.”

         “Yeah,” he said, and it was only a breath of a word, barely anything at all. But it was stronger than anything he’d ever said, it held more than anything he’d ever done. “But I’m in—I’m in love with it.”

_Love._

         Seongwoo was tired of choking on his unsaid words. He could handle rejection, agony—anything more than this crushing silence and the regrets that threatened to consume him.

         Minhyun’s eyes widened, and it was beautiful, in a sad way. A cosmos rippling into something new; the raw youth in it was almost unbearable. And yet it was just enough for him to hold on, just enough for the space between them to be too far.

         “Minhyun,” he started, and his voice was so low it was barely audible. “Minhyun-ah.”

         “I’m here,” he whispered. “I’m listening.”

         “Do you remember?” Seongwoo asked quietly. “When you told me that we’re all looking for something? When you said we had holes?”

         “I,” he said, and it was barely a response at all. “I do.”

         “It hurts, you know. The ache there.” He leaned forward then, and Minhyun’s only response was a sharp exhale, dissipating into the air. He took his hands in his, some searing warmth, some unattainable life, in them. Seongwoo brought one to his chest, pushing down the edge of his shirt until the skin of his collarbone was exposed. He pressed his palm there lightly, his faint heartbeat pulsing against him. Then he looked back at him, momentarily bemused by the blaze in his eyes. “When you’re with me, it… It doesn’t hurt as much.”

         “Seongwoo—“ he managed, and it broke his heart.

         “I know,” he said quickly. “I know I fucked it up and I know that this can’t happen and I know that it’s all a mess and I know, I know. But if I hadn’t written the song, I really wouldn’t have been able to bear it. I just—I needed to say it, even if it wasn’t in words.”

_“Seongwoo—“_

         “You don’t need to say anything,” he went on, borderline rambling at this point. “I get it—this was a mistake and we should stop and I’ll find a different partner and I’ll leave you alone and I’m sorry, I’m so sorr—“

         This was how it happened—Minhyun leaning forward and cupping his face in his hands, pausing for just a fraction of a second to look into his eyes before closing what little space remained between them and pressing his lips to his.

         It was brief—but it didn’t feel brief. A thousand hours trapped in that one second, all the unsaid words and forgotten dreams at 2 A.M. suddenly incarnate. It unsteadied him, the softness of his lips and his warmth and the way how, for just a second, he felt like he could breathe for the first time.  
When they pulled apart, he inhaled deeply, savoring that. Minhyun’s breathing was a little ragged, eyes fixed on his collarbone, on his heart, for a few seconds before he looked up. His voice was unrecognizable when he spoke, laced with fire he hadn’t known he’d possessed.

         “Seongwoo,” he breathed. “For once, just once, please shut the fuck up.”

         He blinked, caught off guard. His thoughts were still tangled, confusion and fear and anxiety and bewilderment threading their way through his rational thought. But under it all, there was a desire, a need to kiss him again, to not let this fall to pieces again.

         A need to hold onto it, no matter how much of a mess it was.

         This time, he couldn’t tell who’d initiated it. They’d moved at the same time, maybe, two souls, two mind wrapped together in this one moment. Minhyun’s lips against his, his breath against his, the darkness around them and the light within them—it felt alien, and yet déjà vu curled around his heartstrings.

         It felt like coming home.

         He couldn’t tell how long it had been since they’d started—his mind was white noise and an aching warmth, some thread of long lost pleasure. Every time they pulled apart it was brief, a fraction of a second to readjust, to recalibrate. But Minhyun’s eyes drew him in that one second, a sparkling night sky and a moon just close enough for him to touch.

         They built a rhythm from it, in and out, close and far, until they grew tired of it all. Fatigue tore at Seongwoo, but it was barely noticeable in the buzz. But that was how they found sleep; simply a tangle of limbs and two beating hearts and the whisper thin thread holding them tight.  
  
…

  
         When Sungwoon got home, it was nearing midnight. Jisung had entered first and stiffened at something he couldn’t see, before turning back and pressing his finger to his lips in a gesture of warning. He leaned forward: “It’s Seongwoo and his bartender. Be careful.”

         “Seriously?” Sungwoon whisper shouted back. “Like they hooked up and all?”

         Jisung made a face at him. “No, they did not _hook up._ I think. Anyway, be quiet, we don’t want to wake them.”

         Sungwoon waved a dismissive hand and pulled out his phone in the other hand, edging closer quietly. The two of them were twisted tight on the couch, and it seemed almost too intimate to observe. He took a single picture, making sure to adjust for the light so that both faces were visible. He glanced back at Jisung. “I’m gonna send it to Daniel—it’s too bad he missed this.”

         “Do what you want,” Jisung said, shrugging. “I’m gonna get some aspirin, the club was way too loud.”

         Sungwoon didn’t think much of his actions, tapping his screen furiously without really paying attention to the specifics of it. Then, the message sent.

         A sharp beeping sound came from the kitchen, and a chill ran down Sungwoon’s spine. Jisung walked back into the room, dread lining his features.

         “Why did I get the picture?” he asked.

         Sungwoon tilted his head. “Maybe I accidentally sent it to both of you.”

         But when he went to his inbox, he saw preview after preview of conversations, all labeled with a single word: sent.

         “Sungwoon-ah,” Jisung managed, looking down at his phone screen. “What did you do?”

         “I…” he muttered. “I don’t know.”  
  
…  
  
         This was how it happened—waking up at 3 A.M. with a sour taste in his mouth, a chill creeping through his toes where there had only been warmth.

         He looked down at Minhyun, curled slightly into the couch behind him. His eyes were fluttered closed, slack jawed peace softening his features. Seongwoo longed to reach out a hand to smooth the growing wrinkle between his brows but stopped himself. This was real—it was permanent, for now. He would satiate himself with that for now.

         There was something stale in the air; the stagnancy of it unnerved him. He pulled himself to his feet—a cup of tea would help, probably. It was just late night jitters.

         Seongwoo heated the water slowly, fingers tapping against the linoleum counter as he watched the tick tock of the clock on the windowsill. Beside it, bloodstained orchids stained the water in the vase yellow orange.

         He dangled the tea bag above the water and dropped it in, and a burst of gold darkened it. A single action, a single movement, and the thousands of particles affected by it. It would’ve been beautiful, if it wasn’t frightening.

         This was how it happened—this was how it all fell apart.

         This was how it happened—the shrill noise of Minhyun’s cellphone ringing as Seongwoo walked back in with his tea. He placed the mug on the edge of the table, and settled back into his spot beside him. Minhyun’s eyes had already fluttered open, and he blinked groggily at the apartment around him as if it was unrecognizable.

         After a few seconds, realization seemed to flood into his eyes, and he pulled himself to a seated position. He glanced at Seongwoo, then, a brief sort of thing that said more than it should’ve. It was the sort of glance that denoted familiarity—intimacy. His heart skipped a beat, but he just took another sip of tea.

         Minhyun accepted the call, and there was a moment of silence. Seongwoo thought back on it a lot—what would’ve happened if that moment had never happened, what would’ve happened if everything after it had never happened. But it passed, brief as it was, and everything came tumbling down.

         “Minhyun?” The voice was almost unrecognizable, yet the timbre of it was familiar.

         Minhyun’s breath tore out of him, harsh and scraping. “Jonghyun?”

_Oh._

         Seongwoo had thought, before it all, that maybe they had been drawn together by fate. That this was something simply in the stars; that no matter how far they pulled apart, they would find each other again, for better or for worse.

         He’d never thought of destiny as cruel—maybe that was where he had made a mistake.

         “Minhyun-ah,” Jonghyun said, sounding like a shadow of himself on the other side of the line. “Tell me you’re not with Seongwoo right now.”

         A laugh that wasn’t a laugh at all, something between humor and anguish. “I can’t do that.”

         There was a pause, then, and Seongwoo’s heart, or what remained of it, tangled itself in the breaths locked in his lungs. _Please,_ he prayed. _Please don’t hurt him. Please don’t let me be why he’s hurt._

         “I’m sorry,” Jonghyun whispered. “I can’t do this, Minhyun. Not when he’s beside you.”

         “Jonghyun-ah,” he managed, and his voice broke on the last syllable. “What are you trying to say?”

         He did that a lot—pretended he didn’t understand when he did, pretended he wasn’t paying attention when he was. It was kindness, but more selfish. It was love, but lonelier.

         “I’m saying,” Jonghyun said quietly. “I’m saying this is over. Whatever we had, that is. It’s not—it doesn’t bother me, Minhyun-ah. I knew it was coming. I just can’t—I can’t do it. I can’t pretend we’re still together when you’re in love with him.”

         It was an intensely intimate conversation, and Seongwoo felt like an intruder, _other_ and _wrong_ and guilty of crimes he couldn’t even bring himself to regret. Even now, all the pain was superseded by that flicker of warmth in his chest, just enough to keep him going.

         “I…” Minhyun started, and the vulnerability in his voice, the sheer _rawness_ tore at Seongwoo, nearly ripped him to pieces. “I’m so sorry, Jonghyun.”

         “Don’t be,” he said, and there was nothing malicious about his words. That was the worst part—the softness there, the smile in his voice. “I’m happy if you’re happy.”

         Another pause, more painful than the last. And then, “I’ll see you tomorrow, Minhyun.”

         The silence that followed was louder than anything Seongwoo had ever heard, more heart wrenching than anything he’d ever felt. Finally, Minhyun whispered, “I have to go, Seongwoo-yah.”

         “I’m sor—“ The apology tumbled out of his mouth, so wretched and pathetic and yet it was all he could offer.

         “Don’t,” he said, and it was that night months ago but so different, so much worse. “Please. This isn’t—we aren’t—I’m not letting this die. Not again.”

         “Then where do we go from here?” Seongwoo managed.

         “I don’t know,” he answered, his voice smaller than it had ever been. “I don’t _know_ , but we’ll figure something out. We have to.” A pause, a beat of silence, and then, “I’ll see you around, Seongwoo.”

         And then he was gone, and all that remained was the tang of strawberry and vanilla on the crumpled couch cushions.  

  
…

  
         This was how it had happened—a text message gone wrong.

         “Hyung,” Seongwoo asked, and he sounded far calmer than he felt. “Could you repeat that one more time?”

         Sungwoon blinked uneasily. “Do I have to?”

         “Yes.”

         “I was just taking a picture to send to Daniel, you know since he’s away in Busan… But I sent it to my contacts list instead.”

         “How many contacts do you have again?”

         “I already said that.”

         “Just want to hear it again,” he managed.

         “Three hundred,” Sungwoon started, and Seongwoo exhaled deeply. “Three hundred and twenty three.”

         “That’s a lot of people.”

         “I guess.”

         “You _guess_?” Seongwoo bit out, but there was no real malice to his words, only the heat and frustration of a boy angry at divinity.

         “Look, Seongwoo,” Sungwoon said, spreading his hands placatingly. “I’m really truly fucking sorry. I said it before and I’ll say it again. I really screwed up, I’m sorry. Just don’t—don’t take it out on yourself.”

         “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Seongwoo replied, because that’s all he could say then.

         “Okay,” Sungwoon said. “That’s okay. Let’s just go to class or something—you have to be at the arts building in twenty minutes.”

         It was a thin attempt at pacification, but Seongwoo was too tired to mull over the issue any further. It had blown up since the night before—people Seongwoo hadn’t spoken to in months texting him for tea and information to hold over others’ heads. He hadn’t heard anything from Minhyun yet, though, nor Jonghyun, and that worried him much more.

         But there was nothing further he could do holed up in his apartment; all he could do was pray that the majority of the negativity with the scandal was directed towards him.

         Infamy was something powerful—he’d always thought of it as something beautiful too, but he couldn’t help but see the loneliness in it now. But infamy held some kind of strength in it, too. To be loved, to be hated, to be feared—that was one thing. To be ostracized—that was quite another.  
Sungwoon stood by him the whole way, though, and his presence was a tether to hold onto in the midst of it all. The leers and the cutting glances and the whispers—it was hard, but it was tolerable. It was okay, because Seongwoo already knew everything they said about him.

         He knew it was true.

         This was how it happened—a single phrase tossed behind his back, just close enough for him to hear, and the whole world going red.

         Everything seemed to happen in slow motion from that point on, yet it was irreversible. It was a trainwreck sliding off the tracks and the force with which it wreaked chaos. It was unavoidable—a tidal wave in a barren landscape.

         Seongwoo slammed his fist into the side of the offender’s face. It was a well placed blow, but there was a erratic beat to his movement, the only sign of his pulsing fury. His control was fraying, all that ash and darkness threatening to choke him. His head flung to the side, and Seongwoo used one arm to hold him up to the wall and the used the other hand to punch him again. Blood trickled down his chin, and his eyes were barely fluttered open, nothing more than the slightest hint of bewilderment coloring them.

         The man, more a boy, slid to the base of the wall in a heap, and the crimson tinging the edges of Seongwoo’s vision faded slowly. It was the one who’d punched him earlier—Minhyuk? Minsung? He didn’t remember, but the memory of the incident left a sour taste in his mouth.

         He crouched beside him, aware of the crowd building around him and Sungwoon’s shadow falling in front of him. He wrapped his fingers around the collar of his shirt, pulling him close so that his lips brushed his ear when he spoke.

         “Don’t you dare,” he whispered venomously. “Don’t you dare say his name ever again.”

         “I’ll,” the boy started, coughing blood before smiling scarlet. “I’ll put you in jail, Ong Seongwoo.”

         “You can try,” he allowed, but there was no ease in his words. “I’ll put you in a grave.”

         “That’s enough,” Sungwoon cut in, bending down to rip his arm away. “Come on, Seongwoo.”

         He offered a last grin, more a flash of teeth than anything, and allowed Sungwoon to drag him towards class. The crowd parted around them, and it would’ve been frightening if he were paying attention. But everything still seemed just slightly red, something feral tearing at him like hooks in his skin.

         Sungwoon stopped just outside the arts building. “Seongwoo. Seongwoo, are you listening to me?”

         “Yes,” he lied.

         “Please,” he sighed, carding a hand through his hair. “Please don’t fuck up someone in your next class. Until one of us can be with you just—watch yourself. For his sake too.”

_For his sake._

         It was true—painfully true. Seongwoo shrugged. “Aye aye, captain. I’ll keep my hands in my pockets!”

         Sungwoon only narrowed his eyes, but sighed again and nodded towards the door after a few seconds. “I’ll see you after class.”

         The call came halfway through the lecture, a hesitant twenty something at the door whispering to the professor before ducking back out of the hall. The prof raised his eyebrows briefly before waving a hand at Seongwoo. “Ong, the dean wants you for something.”

         It wasn’t as if Seongwoo and the dean hadn’t already met—in fact, considering his track record of messy nights and messier days, he’d spent more time in the dean’s office than in class for the majority of freshman year. But, as Jisung liked to say, he’d somewhat mellowed out since then.

         The dean, a sharp looking middle aged woman who went by Boa, raised her eyebrows at him when he ducked into her office. “Haven’t seen you in a while. Focusing on studies?”

         “…You could say that,” Seongwoo said, shifting uneasily.

         Boa simply raised her eyebrows further and fell into silence. After a few minutes of combing through a document on her desk, she sighed. “Did you really have to punch him that much?”

         “Yeah,” he said firmly. “I did.”

         Her eyebrows moved towards her hairline. “You’re not known for aggression. There’s a _lot_ you’re known for—trust me, I have your permanent record—but aggression isn’t one of them. So,” she pulled down her glasses and gestured at the chair in front of her with a pen. “What happened?”

         Now that it was in front of him like this, he wasn’t quite sure how to put it. Finally, he simply said, “He was being disrespectful to a friend of mine.”

         “…I see,” she said. “How disrespectful?”

         “I’m not comfortable repeating it,” he said, and his voice came out weaker than intended. She blinked in surprise at that, and shifted in her chair.

         “He wants you kicked out, you know.”

         Seongwoo scoffed. “Like that would satiate him. He’s not going to stop until I’m locked up in some penitentiary for mouthing off.”

         Boa shrugged. “You’re right. But there’s not much I can do at this point—someone else is coming in to side with you, the victim, I think. If he gives good enough information, I can pull it down to a suspension. But you’ll be on probation.”

         “The victim?” Seongwoo asked, even though he already knew. Somehow, he already knew.

         “You know him, right? Your friend,” she said, waving her hand. “Hwang Minhyun?”

         A knock at the door, and then he came in. Seongwoo swiveled to look at him, to _read_ him, but he should’ve known better. His expression was carefully neutral, only a flicker of some lost ember evident when he glanced at him.

         “I’ll be,” Seongwoo said. “I’ll be outside.”

         Minhyun’s eyes were on him as he left, scorching heat and something more.

         When Seongwoo closed the door behind him, the last of his energy drained out of him and he barely managed to pull himself into a seat. God, this was such a mess, such a fucking mess.

         The white noise filling his head began to dissipate before long, and by the time Minhyun reentered the hallway, his mind was clear—harshly so.

         “I’m sorr—“ Seongwoo managed, eyes fixed on Minhyun’s neck, his chest, anything but his face.

         His fingers tilted his chin up, cupping his face slightly. His expression was still unreadable, but it was no longer neutral. When he spoke, his voice was gentle. “How many times have I told you to stop apologizing?”

         Seongwoo exhaled, and it was something near a sob. “I’m sorr—I’ll stop. It’s just—what he said—I couldn’t—“

         “What did he say?” Minhyun cut in softly.

         He shook his head. “I can’t say it, I can’t say that about you.”

         “Say it,” he said firmly, and there was a fire in his eyes. Seongwoo remembered Woojin’s words, then— _he’s one of the strongest people I’ve ever met._ Admiration and anger mingled in his heart.

         “He said,” Seongwoo managed, inhaling sharply. “He said, ‘I never thought Hwang would whore himself out for that bastard.’”

         Minhyun simply nodded, the flames in his eyes the only sign of his true reaction to the words. Then he leaned forward, rubbing the pads of his thumbs in circles on Seongwoo’s cheeks. He pressed his lips to his, chaste at first and then deeper. He pulled back after a few seconds, voice breathless when he whispered, “Say it again.”

         So he did. Minhyun dipped down and kissed him again.

         “Again.”

         The words blurred into each other, into the softness of his lips and the force, the almost magnetic force with which they pulled together.

         Seongwoo lost count of how long he whispered that word— _again, again, again, again_ —but eventually, Minhyun exhaled deeply, pulling apart just a little, so that their foreheads were still pressed against each other. There was just a bit of space between them, then, just enough space.

         “If they say that again,” he murmured, barely audible, but just enough. “Remember this. And walk away.”

         Seongwoo swallowed hard. “Yeah. Okay.”

         Minhyun smiled, and maybe that was enough. “The dean told me about your situation. For now, she thinks she can get you a couple weeks suspension.”

         “Thank god,” he mumbled.

         “Thank _me_ ,” he teased, and Seongwoo’s eyes flicked up. At the sincerity in them, he laughed. “Let’s get out of here.”  
  
…  
  
         Suspension wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Seongwoo would rather have been at school holding his own instead of cooped up in his apartment playing the same three minutes of audio over and over until his ears bled.

         “Are you still working on that?” Daniel asked once, coming home from an evening class. “It’s been like three months.”

         Seongwoo shook his head. “This time, it’s for real.”

         Daniel tilted his head, hair flopping over his forehead. “Need help?”

         He found that his roommate was a lot better at writing lyrics than he was. He frowned and cocked his head. “And how do you know this much about confessing your feelings to someone?”

         Daniel didn’t say anything at first to that, but shrugged after a few seconds. “Just a knack for it, I guess.”

         Regardless of the origins of his so-called knack, his help was invaluable. The seven disjointed lines Seongwoo had composed over the course of a day easily became a whole song in nearly a quarter of the time.

         “You’re a lifesaver,” he breathed after they’d finished. “How did you even—you know what. I don’t even want to ask.”

         Daniel just laughed at that. “Hyung, we’ve been friends since forever. Don’t you think I picked up how to translate your mind vomit into words along the way?”

         “I’m going to take that as a compliment on both sides,” Seongwoo said. “That is most definitely a compliment.”

         “Sure, take it as you want,” he replied, eyes sparkling. “And hyung?”

         “Mm?”

         “Don’t fuck it up with him this time,” he grinned, clapping a hand on his shoulder before getting up.

         “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

         “Of course you don’t, hyung. Of course you don’t.”

         Seongwoo called Minki the next day. He could hear Minhyun in the background, voice scratchy but audible. “Is that Seongwoo? He’s not answering any of my texts, and his roommates won’t let me in.”

         “No,” Minki said slowly, for whatever reason. “It’s my cousin. From Daegu. Urgent call, I’ll have to take this outside, _sorry!”_ There was a brief pause, then, and then: “What the hell do you want, Ong?”

         “I want a gig at Moonlight,” he said firmly. “Seven o’clock, whenever you can schedule it in the next week.”

         Minki didn’t say anything for a few seconds, background noise flooding the other side of the receiver. Then he replied, “Do I want to know why?”

         Seongwoo laughed. “I think you already do.”

         He could hear the smile in his voice when he answered. “Don’t mess up, Ong. My bar has a reputation, you know.”

         “I won’t,” he promised.

         But for all of his confidence, a sharp snarl of anxiety tore at his heart.  
  
…

  
         This was how it happened—a couple minutes to seven, lingering in the backroom of Moonlight with the lyrics pulsing in the back of his mind.

         “You can do this,” he told himself. “It’s just another performance. Just another show.”

         But it wasn’t, and he knew it. It wasn’t a performance—all fake smiles and artificial agony manufactured to touch an audience. It was laying himself bare, exposing something raw and expansive—it was a confession.

         Convincing himself otherwise was worth a shot, though.

         Minki ducked into the backroom, light streaming in from the bar and cutting his face into strips. He grinned. “You’re up. Good luck.”

         Seongwoo smiled back, anxiety lacing his movements. “Thanks.”

         This was how it happened—a handful of star lights casting a cool glow on the near empty bar, the breath of a chill in the air, and the moon, shining bright above it all.

         He was at the counter when Seongwoo walked in, wiping it down carefully. It took him a few seconds, but his eyes quickly flicked up, confusion flitting through them. A silent question waited there, but he didn’t bother answering. That was why he’d written the song, after all.  
Seongwoo pulled himself up to the stage, looking down and taking a deep breath. The audio trickled in through the speakers; he took a hold of the microphone and tilted his head down, so that when he whispered the first lyric, it layered over the melody just right.

         He’d performed countless times—sang to countless crowds. Yet this was different. Because when he looked up, when he saw the pale glow of the stars reflected in his eyes, his heartstrings cut loose.

         This was how it happened—a spilled confession, bittersweet and soaked with yearning and just the faintest hint of hope.

         This was how it happened—a broken boy who’d mended himself, and a boy with bloodied hands that still shone scarlet where he’d washed them clean.

         This was how it happened—a sun, and a moon, and the split second when they touched.

         After, it was different. Seongwoo knew this, words bubbling in his throat even when he knew there was nothing more to say. There was some scattered applause, yet it didn’t warm him like it usually did. He took a seat at the bar—two seats from the end, like always.

         Minhyun didn’t say anything at first, pulling a glass from a cabinet. “Your usual?”

         “Yeah.”

         He made the drink quickly, silently, expression unreadable, and handed it to him. He leaned down, then, just barely, and tilted his head. “You said you couldn’t write lyrics.”

         His lips twisted in a lopsided smile. “Figured something out.”

         The corners of his mouth twitched upward in the beginnings of a smile. “Really.”

         “Did you like it?” he asked, sipping the whisky slowly.

         Minhyun gave him a flippant expression before grinning. “Not really. I loved it.”

         Seongwoo bit his lip to keep from laughing, but it spilled out regardless. “Cheesy of you.”

         “And what about this isn’t cheesy to you, Seongwoo-yah?” he responded teasingly.

         “Touché,” he admitted. He pulled out his wallet—he hadn’t been to Moonlight for weeks. He might as well pay it all off now.

         Minhyun shook his head, eyes sparkling. The cosmos in them seemed brighter than ever, more alive than before. “It’s on the house.”

**Author's Note:**

> hi! i hope u liked it :D please please PLEASE leave comments or kudos it would mean so much to me :") also feel free to dm me or hmu on twt @ hwanguit i'd really love to know what you guys think! alternatively leave smth at my cc ⇢ ꒰ curiouscat.me/chuuist ꒱


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